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This study was conducted to evaluate the significance of the elevated umbilical artery systoIic/diastolic ratio(A/B ratio) in the normally grown fetuses. The pregnancy outcomes were assessed according to the results of pulsed- wave Doppler umbilical artery velocimetry for 295 subjects who delivered an infant with a birth weight above the 10th percentile for gestational age within two weeks from last Doppler examination. Forty- one (13.9%) had an abnormal A/B ratie(> 2SD above the mean for gestational age). The elevated A/B ratio group revealed significantly lower mean gestational age at delivery and mean birth weight and had significantly higher frequency of preterm delivery, cesarean section due to fetal distress, lower Apgar score, admission into the neonatal intensive care unit and perinatal death. The sensitivity of the D-oppler umbilical artery A/B ratio for an adverse perinatal outcome(perinatal death and/ or admi,;sion into the neonatal intensive care unit) was 51.6%, specificity 90.5%, positive predictive, value 39.0% and negative predictive value 94.1% . In six subjects, the end-diastolic blood flow was absent. All of them showed adverse perinatal outcome, and were delivered before t-ern. Our results suggest that Doppler umbilical artery velocimetry are valuable method for identifying the compromised fetuses even in normally grown ones.
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