The use of contrast agents as signal enhancers during ultrasound improves visualization and the diagnostic utility of this technology in medical imaging. Although widely used in many disciplines, contrast ultrasound is not routinely implemented in obstetrics, largely due to safety concerns of administered agents for pregnant women and the limited number of studies that address this issue. Here the microbubble characteristics that make them beneficial for enhancement of the blood pool and the quantification of real-time imaging are reviewed. Literature from pregnant animal model studies and safety assessments are detailed, and the potential for contrast-enhanced ultrasound to provide clinically relevant data and benefit our understanding of early placental development and detection of placental dysfunction is discussed.

中文翻译：

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用于评估胎盘发育和功能的对比增强超声。

在超声期间使用造影剂作为信号增强器改善了该技术在医学成像中的可视化和诊断效用。尽管在许多学科中广泛使用，但对比超声在产科中并未常规实施，这主要是由于孕妇给药的安全问题以及解决此问题的研究数量有限。这里回顾了使它们有利于增强血池和实时成像量化的微泡特性。详细介绍了来自妊娠动物模型研究和安全性评估的文献，并讨论了对比增强超声提供临床相关数据并有益于我们对早期胎盘发育和胎盘功能障碍检测的理解的潜力。