Cardiac tumors (CT) in children are very rare lesions, but their diagnosis is crucial for patient management. Echocardiography is the most used cardiovascular imaging modality in clinical practice for the initial diagnosis of CT in pediatric patients. Knowing the echocardiographic characteristics of CTs can enable an increasingly early diagnosis and the identification of its most likely etiology. Primary CTs are the most frequent in children, with benign ones being the most prevalent. Among benign CTs, the most frequent in fetuses and neonates are rhabdomyomas and teratomas, while in older children, they are rhabdomyomas and fibromas. In this article we describe the echocardiographic characteristics of the main CTs in pediatric ages.

In the current literature, we observed a tendency to describe normal values ​​of echocardiographic measurements by means of the Z-score. In fetal cardiology, these Z-score equations are still being established. Measurement of myocardial thickness is an important assessment especially in fetuses of diabetic pregnant women because of the risk of developing myocardial hypertrophy secondary to elevated maternal blood glucose levels. To determine the percentiles and to develop the Z-score equations of right and left ventricular lateral wall and interventricular septum measurements using two-dimensional echocardiography in normal fetuses between 24 and 34 weeks of gestation. This is a prospective cross-sectional study that was performed in single fetuses with normal heart and in non-diabetic pregnant women. Measurements of the lateral wall of the right and left ventricles and the interventricular septum were made. 873 pregnant women were included. We determined the percentiles of the measurements for each gestational age. The Z-score equation was developed for each of the measurements: right ventricular lateral wall measurement [RVLW = x - (- 1 + 0.109 * GI) / 0.4], left ventricle lateral wall measurement [LVLW = x - (- 1.366 + 0.12 * GI) / 0.43] and the interventricular septum in the four-chamber plane [IVS4ch = (x - (- 1,113+ 0.107 * IG) / 0.4] and the interventricular septum in the left ventricular outflow tract plane [IVSLVOT = (x - (-0.581 + 0.084 * GI) / 0.35]. The present study allowed to demonstrate the percentiles and the Z-score equations for each of the measures studied.