Cerebral blood flow velocity waveforms in hydrocephalic fetuses.

Pulsed Doppler recordings of intracranial arterial velocity waveforms were made in 9 hydrocephalic fetuses during the second or third trimesters of pregnancy. Normal, increased, and decreased velocity waveform indices could be measured in these cases, and 1 fetus presented retrograde diastolic flow. Cerebral blood flow patterns of hydrocephalic fetuses seem to differ individually from case to case, presenting no uniform waveform type in late pregnancy. There was no obvious correlation between ventricular dilatation and the type of the velocity waveform.