Preclinical Ultrasound-Guided Photoacoustic Imaging of the Placenta in Normal and Pathologic Pregnancy.

Liliya M Yamaleyeva,Lane M Smith,K Bridget Brosnihan,Yao Sun

doi:10.1177/1536012118802721

Abstract

Placental oxygenation varies throughout pregnancy. The detection of early changes in placental oxygenation as pregnancy progresses is important for early identification of preeclampsia or other complications. This invited commentary discusses a recent preclinical study on the application of 3-dimensional photoacoustic imaging (PAI) for assessment of regional variations in placental oxygenation and longitudinal analysis of differences in placental oxygenation throughout normal pregnancy and pregnancy associated with hypertension or placental insufficiency in mice. Three-dimensional PAI more accurately reflects oxygen saturation, hemoglobin concentrations, and changes in oxygen saturation in whole placenta compared to 2-dimensional imaging. These studies suggest that PAI is a sensitive tool to detect different levels of oxygen saturation in the placental and fetal vasculature in pathologic and normal pregnancy in mice.

Highlights

Detection of early changes in placental oxygenation throughout pregnancy may lead to the identification of pregnancies at risk for negative maternal and fetal outcomes, including preeclampsia and other hypertensive disorders of pregnancy
Doppler ultrasound is widely used to assess uterine and umbilical blood flows in high-risk pregnancies. Such measurements only indirectly relate to the development of the placental vascular network and oxygenation and the Doppler clinical value as a screening tool in intrauterine growth restriction or preeclampsia is controversial.[3]
A few studies have demonstrated the utility of blood-oxygenation-leveldependent (BOLD) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for analysis of placental and fetal oxygenation

Summary

Introduction

These early preclinical and clinical studies have shown the application of BOLD MRI for the detection of regional differences in placental oxygen saturation in response to changes in maternal oxygenation during singleton and monozygous twin human pregnancies,[4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]

Results

Conclusion