The prenatal diagnosis of a rare circular shunt with absent pulmonary valve syndrome.

Absent pulmonary valve syndrome (APVS) with tricuspid atresia is very rare. We report a case of APVS in which the fetus died due to severe hydrops fetalis. In addition to weakened cardiac contraction due to left ventricular noncompaction cardiomyopathy, a circular shunt through a ventricular septal defect exacerbated heart failure. Although APVS with tricuspid valve atresia is not supposed to cause a circular shunt, we herein present the echocardiographic demonstration of a case of circular shunt.

The telediagnosis of double aortic arch using spatio-temporal image correlation.

We diagnosed two cases of double aortic arch (DAA) remotely. In both cases, the right aortic arch was suspected, and a remote diagnosis was requested. We performed a remote diagnosis by the spatio-temporal image correlation (STIC) method. DAA was diagnosed by detecting the left aortic arch in an axial transverse section in the three-vessel trachea view. Since the STIC method can make multiple cross sections, making a diagnosis by the STIC method was useful for the remote diagnosis of these patients. In particular, HD flow render mode clearly showed left aortic arch, so it was possible to diagnose DAA.

A Case of Persistent Fifth Aortic Arch With an Interrupted Fourth Aortic Arch.

We report the case of a 4-year-old boy with coarctation of the aorta resulting from persistent fifth aortic arch, a rare abnormality, along with an interrupted fourth aortic arch. When he visited a general practitioner with an upper respiratory infection, a heart murmur was noted. Computed tomography findings led to the diagnosis of persistent fifth aortic arch with an interrupted fourth aortic arch. He underwent aortic arch repair, excision of the fifth aortic arch, and anastomosis of the original arch with the descending aorta. Pathologically, the tissue of the fifth aortic arch was different from that of the normal aortic arch.