Embryonic cardiac morphometry in Carnegie stages 15-23, from the Complutense University of Madrid Institute of Embryology Human Embryo Collection.

AIMS: We performed a morphometric study of cardiac development on human embryos to complement the scarce data on human embryonic cardiac morphometry and to attempt to establish, from these, algorithms describing cardiac growth during the second month of gestation. METHODS: Thirty human embryos from Carnegie stages 15-23 were included in the study. Shrinkage and compression effects from fixation and inclusion in paraffin were considered in our calculations. RESULTS: Growth of the cardiac (whole heart) volume and volume of ventricular myocardium through the Carnegie stages were analysed by ANOVA. Linear correlation was used to describe the relationship between the ventricular myocardium and cardiac volumes. Comparisons of models were carried out through the R2 statistic. The relationship volume of ventricular myocardium versus cardiac volume is expressed by the equation: cardiac volume = 0.6266 + 2.4778 volume of ventricular myocardium. The relationship cardiac volume versus crown-rump length is expressed by the equation: cardiac volume = 1.3 e(0.126 CR length), where e is the base of natural logarithms. CONCLUSION: At a clinical level, these results can contribute towards the establishment of a normogram for cardiac development, useful for the design of strategies for early diagnosis of congenital heart disease. They can also help in the study of embryogenesis, for example in the discussion of ventricular trabeculation.

Cardiac developmental onomatology: the real heart of the matter.

There has been much controversy regarding Cardiac Embryology since the 19th Century; this has brought up contradictions over many studies on Cardiac Development, and stems mainly from semantic differences rather than from scientific observations. In 1998, FCAT published the 1st Edition of Terminologia Anatomica, which did not include Terminologia Embryologica, and to this day, we do not have a thorough compilation of Terminology related to Cardiac Development (O'Rahilly and Müller 1996). In the present study we have reviewed the literature from the 19th and 20th Centuries gathering the terms proposed by those scientists who influenced Prenatal Cardiac Terminology. Our aim is to bring to the attention of clinicians and researchers of cardiac morphogenesis the need to undertake a reform of the Developmental Cardiac Terminology. We believe an International Consensus on the terminology to be used during the developmental stages is urgent; it should be meaningful both to the experimental embryologist and to the cardiologist, without being ambiguous or controversial. We must not forget that a terminology is of value only when it is properly used.