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The study, conducted by principal investigator Ron Wakai, PhD and clinical collaborators Janette Strasburger, MD and Bettina Cuneo, MD at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, investigated whether the use of fetal magnetocardiograms (or fMCGs) could be used to accurately diagnose fetal Long QT Syndrome in pregnant women.
The researchers evaluated 30 pregnancies from 1996 to 2012 in Wisconsin and at two locations in Japan. They chose patients based on a family history of long QT syndrome, unexplained death of a sibling in infancy or childhood, or a suspicious fetal heart rhythm. Long QT syndrome was diagnosed in 21 of the fetuses. Six of the fetuses had dangerous heart rhythms and one was delivered early after threatening rhythms were noted. fMCG also enabled definitive diagnosis of Torsades de Pointes (TdP), long QT syndrome's signature rhythm. The study is the first to document the electrophysiological characteristics of fetal long QT syndrome and to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of a magnetocardiogram, or MCG, in a sizable population of at-risk fetuses.