The present study aimed to examine the value of ultrasonic soft markers in prenatal screening by analyzing the clinical outcome of fetuses with ultrasonic soft markers during the second trimester of pregnancy. A retrospective analysis was performed to evaluate the outcome of 591 fetuses with ultrasonic soft markers from January 2015 to August 2016 in Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, China. It was found that 591 fetuses showed ultrasonic soft markers in 4927 cases with the occurrence rate being 12.0%. Among them, 564 fetuses (95.4%) were delivered and the remaining 27 cases (4.6%) were aborted. Five hundred and sixty-seven cases had single ultrasonic soft marker, including echogenic intracardiac focus (n=343), mild renal pelvis dilatation (n=116), short long bones (n=72), single umbilical artery (n=31), mild lateral ventriculomegaly (n=21), choroid plexus cysts (n=19), and echogenic bowel (n=13), with the disappearing rates in pregnancy being 97.1% (333/343), 77.6% (90/116), 0% (0/72), 0% (0/31), 57.1% (12/21), 89.5% (17/19) and 61.5% (8/13) respectively. The rate of pregnancy termination due to single ultrasonic soft marker was 3.4% (19/567), and that was 33.3% (8/24) due to two ultrasonic soft markers with the difference being statistically significant (P<0.05). The reasons of pregnancy termination included malformations (polycystic kidney, cleft lip and palate, congenital heart diseases, pcromphalus, hypospadias, hydrocephalus), chromosome abnormality, and stillbirth. It was concluded that single ultrasonic soft marker is usually transient manifestation in pregnancy. Without the other structural defects, single ultrasonic soft marker usually disappears spontaneously with favorable prognosis in a low-risk population. It is suggested that ultrasonic soft markers should be appropriately interpreted to avoid unnecessary invasive examination.
Keywords: fetus; prognosis; ultrasonic soft marker.