THE CORRELATION OF SHAPE OF YOLK SAC WITH SPONTANEOUS ABORTION- AN ULTRASONOGRAPHIC STUDY

The pregnancy is one of the most fascinating experiences which a woman undergoes in her life and of the whole, the first trimester is a vital time as the pregnancy gets established. The last menstrual period (LMP) is generally used as a landmark for pregnancy dating, and the first trimester of pregnancy is defined as 12 weeks after the LMP. The first recognizable structure inside the gestational sac is the yolk sac, which should be detectable as a regularly rounded extra-amniotic structure when the gestational sac reaches dimensions of 8 to 10 mm. In a normal pregnancy it should be possible to observe the yolk sac between 6-12 weeks of pregnancy or when it reaches 10 mm in size. Ultrasonography shows the yolk sac as a round structure that is made up of an anechoic center bordered by a regular well-defined echogenic rim. The normal shape of yolk sac is circular. The yolk sac appears at 6 weeks, thereafter increases in size, attains its maximum diameter at 10 weeks and then it starts decreasing in size. It disappears at 12 weeks. Aim and Objectives of the present study is to study the shape of yolk sac in pregnant females, in the first trimester of pregnancy and to find it's correlation with spontaneous abortion. We studied 72 pregnant females, who were in their first trimester of pregnancy, referred by Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. The shape of yolk sac was observed by transvaginal sonography and its correlation with spontaneous abortion was studied. Yolk sac was present in 70 cases (97.22%) and in two cases (2.78%), it was absent. In 68 (97.14%) cases the shape of yolk sack was circular. It was irregular (1.4%) and oblong (1.4%) in one case each.