Maternal medicine

You have full text access to this OnlineOpen article

Access to computerised analysis of intrapartum cardiotocographs improves clinicians’ prediction of newborn umbilical artery blood pH

  1. A Costa1,2,
  2. C Santos3,4,
  3. D Ayres-de-Campos1,2,
  4. C Costa1,2,
  5. J Bernardes1,2

Article first published online: 7 JUL 2010

DOI: 10.1111/j.1471-0528.2010.02645.x

Issue

BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology

BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology

Volume 117, Issue 10, pages 1288–1293, September 2010

Additional Information

How to Cite

Costa, A., Santos, C., Ayres-de-Campos, D., Costa, C. and Bernardes, J. (2010), Access to computerised analysis of intrapartum cardiotocographs improves clinicians’ prediction of newborn umbilical artery blood pH. BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, 117: 1288–1293. doi: 10.1111/j.1471-0528.2010.02645.x

Author Information

  1. 1

    Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Faculty of Medicine, Porto University, São João Hospital, Portugal

  2. 2

    Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Porto, Portugal

  3. 3

    Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, Faculty of Medicine, Porto University, Portugal

  4. 4

    Centre for Research in Health Technologies and Information Systems, Faculty of Medicine, Porto University, Portugal

*A Costa, Departamento de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia, Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade do Porto, Alameda Hernani Monteiro, 4200-319 Porto, Portugal. Email cosantonia@gmail.com

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 16 AUG 2010
  2. Article first published online: 7 JUL 2010
  3. Accepted 21 April 2010. Published Online 7 July 2010.

SEARCH

SEARCH BY CITATION

ARTICLE TOOLS

View Full Article (HTML) Get PDF (234K)

Keywords:

  • Apgar score;
  • cardiotocography;
  • computerised analysis;
  • fetal heart rate;
  • fetal monitoring;
  • neonatal acidaemia

Please cite this paper as: Costa A, Santos C, DAyres-, de-Campos, Costa C, Bernardes J. Access to computerised analysis of intrapartum cardiotocographs improves clinicians’ prediction of newborn umbilical artery blood pH. BJOG 2010;117:1288–1293.

Objective  To evaluate the impact of access to computerised cardiotocograph (CTG) analysis on reproducibility and accuracy of clinicians’ predictions of umbilical artery blood pH (UAB pH) and 5-minute Apgar score.

Design  Prospective evaluation of pre-recorded cases.

Setting  A tertiary-care university hospital.

Population  From databases of intrapartum CTGs acquired in singleton term pregnancies, 204 tracings with low signal loss and short time interval to delivery were consecutively selected.

Methods  Tracings were randomly assigned to computer analysis by the Omniview-SisPorto 3.5® system (study group n = 104) or to no analysis (control group n = 100). Three experienced clinicians evaluated all tracing printouts independently and were asked to predict the newborns’ UAB pH and 5-minute Apgar scores from them.

Main outcome measures  Interobserver agreement (measured by the intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC]) and accuracy in prediction of neonatal outcomes with 95% CI.

Results  Agreement on prediction of UAB pH was significantly higher in the study group (ICC = 0.70; 95% CI 0.61–0.77) than in the control group (ICC = 0.43; 95% CI 0.21–0.60), and a trend towards better agreement was also seen in estimation of 5-minute Apgar scores (ICC = 0.55; 95% CI 0.38–0.68 versus ICC = 0.43; 95% CI 0.25–0.57). Observers predicted UAB pH values correctly within a 0.10 margin in 70% of cases in the study group (95% CI 0.61–0.79) versus 46% in the control group (95% CI 0.35–0.56). They predicted 5-minute Apgar scores within a margin of one in 81% of cases in the study group (95% CI 0.73–0.88) and in 70% of cases in the control group (95% CI 0.61–0.79).

Conclusions  Prediction of UAB pH is more reproducible and accurate when clinicians have access to computerised analysis of CTGs.

View Full Article (HTML) Get PDF (234K)