The contribution of umbilical Doppler velocimetry in suspected echographic IUGR

: Doppler pulses or continuous flow in the umbilical artery is a technique recently used in practical obstetrics and of value particularly in screening at risk pregnancies. The authors wish to study its value as a diagnostic and prognostic tool in the special cases where ultrasound has given rise to a suggestion that there may be intra-uterine growth retardation (I.U.G.R.). In a preliminary publication they report their experience in 100 normal pregnancies so that they have obtained a control diagram. Then, working on a population of 117 pregnancies with ultrasonically diagnosed I.U.G.R. they studied the birth-weight, the early neonatal morbidity and the neonatal mortality as a function of the Pourcelot S - D/S index. They were able to separate out 63 cases of I.U.G.R. without any hypertension and 54 cases associated with hypertension. They analyse the same parameters. They then discuss first the value of the diagram they have made in comparison with other known curves, also the diagnostic and prognostic performance of the method. They conclude that there is a moderate diagnostic value in Doppler velocimetry. The prognostic value is much better because the Doppler can differentiate those case of slow growth that are going to do well against those that are going to do badly.