Surveillance and Treatment to Prevent Fetal Atrioventricular Block Likely to Occur Quickly

Brief description of study

Fetal complete (i.e., third degree) atrioventricular block (AVB), identified in the 2nd trimester of pregnancy in an otherwise normally developing heart, is almost universally associated with maternal anti-Ro autoantibodies and results in death in a fifth of cases. To date no treatment of 3° AVB has been effective, which may be because current surveillance is limited to once- weekly fetal echocardiograms. This study has three purposes. The first is to find out if you have a high level of these anti-Ro/SSA antibodies in your blood which puts you at greater risk of having a baby with a heart problem. The second purpose is to find out if listening to your fetus’s heartbeat using a small Doppler device 3x/day at your home, can identify an abnormal fetal heartbeat ( a slow heart rate or an irregular heart rhythm). The third purpose is to find out if urgent treatment of an abnormal fetal heartbeat can restore normal rhythm, if this abnormal heart- beat is found to be 2° heart block.


Clinical Study Identifier: s20-00363
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04474223
Principal Investigator: Jill P Buyon.
Other Investigators: Kelly Corbitt, Robert Clancy, Young Mi Lee, Colin Kit Lun Phoon, Ashley S Roman, Amit Saxena, Peter M Izmirly, Philip Carlucci.


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