ABSTRACT
Introduction The quality of prenatal echocardiography has greatly improved in the recent past, secondary to increased experience of diagnosticians and improvement in equipment, both identifying cardiac structures with greater detail. Congenital heart disease is now detected earlier in gestation and can play an important part in decisions concerning termination of pregnancy. The link between early echocardiographic and pathologic diagnosis is an important one, with the autopsy being the final arbiter. Dilation and evacuation procedures can provide nearly as much information as a full autopsy if the examination is done with extreme care. Pathologic confirmation of echocardiographic findings serves to educate the echocardiographer, the maternal fetal medicine physician, and most importantly, the family. The nature and scope of counseling for the family can be impacted based on the specificity of the pathologic diagnosis.
