Karol Dókuš, Silvia Dókušová, Anna Šparcová, Emil Martinka, Ján Danko
The aim of the study was to compare the blood flow in the ductus venosus of foetuses in pregnant women with diabetes mellitus type 1, with diabetic foetal cardiomyopathy or without it, and in foetuses of healthy pregnant women. It was a prospective cross-sectional study performed on the sample of 19 pregnant women with diabetes mellitus type 1 and 41 healthy pregnant women, in whom the foetal circulation was examined with ultrasound between 32 and 41st week of pregnancy. Foetuses with postnatally verified hypertrophic diabetic foetal cardiomyopathy, whose mothers suffered from diabetes mellitus type 1, had significantly higher values of the pulsatility index in the ductus venosus [0.74 ± 0.15 (SD)] against foetuses of diabetic women, whose children did not have cardiomyopathy [0.58 ± 0.17 (SD)], or foetuses of healthy women [0.51 ± 0.12 (SD); p = 0.016]. Circulation examination in the ductus venosus of pregnant women with diabetes type 1 might help the prediction of diabetic foetal cardiomyopathy, which belongs to causes of late foetal losses in diabetic women.