Objective To preliminary investigate fetal left heart function of fetuses in α-thalassemia using spatio-temporal image correlation (STIC).Methods 95 volumes from fetal hearts in singleton pregnancies at 20-28 weeks of gestation were collected.STIC datasets were frozen in end-systole and enddiastole.Ventricular volumes were measured using VOCAL,Inversion and SonoAVC.The stroke volume was calculated from these measurements.Results All data sets could be measured with all three techniques in this study.The intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) between techniques were all ＞ 0.90.The time necessary to measure the stroke volume was significantly shorter using SonoAVC than using VOCAL and Inversion.Bland-Altman plots showed no clinically significant mean percent differences between stroke volume measurements obtained from each ventricle using three techniques.The left ventricular end-systole volume(ESV),stroke volume(SV)and ejection fraction(EF)was significantly different than fetuses with normal heart (P ＜ 0.05).Conclusions This study shows the feasibility of measuring left ventricular volumes during either systole or diastole and thereby calculating stroke volumes with all three techniques.And there was a high degree of reliability for all three techniques,as shown by excellent ICCs.There was good accuracy of STIC techniques in measuring fetal left ventricular volumes with cardiomegaly.

Objective To evaluate the value of three-dimensional color power angiography(3D-CPA) in the differential diagnosis of benign and malignant breast tumors.Methods 3D-CPA vascular parameters were collected and analyzed in 121 breast solid lesions (63 malignant,58 benign) in the 114 female patients.The diagnostic performances of each parameter were compared by receiver operating characteristic (ROC)cure.Results The parameters of intra-tumor flow index (FI1),flow index of shells with outside thickness of 3mm surrounding the breast tumors(FI2 ) and the ratio of FI2 and FI1 (G2) in malignant group were significantly higher than those in benign group( P ＜0.05,respectively).Analysis of the areas under ROC curve showed that the areas under FI2 curve was the largest.No significant difference( P ＞0.05) was found between the area under FI2 curve and the area under G2 curve.Comparing the area under FI2 curve to that under FI1,there was significant differences ( P ＜ 0.05).Taking FI2 ≥ 27.385 as the critical value,the sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis of malignant breast tumors were 88.9％ and 81.0％,and the positive and negative predictive values were 83.6％ and 87.0％ respectively.Conclusions The sensitivity and specificity of 3D-CPA parameter FI2 in the diagnosis of malignant breast tumors were higher than others,FI2 with the optimal critical value of ≥27.385 could help to identify malignant from benign breast tumors.