Haak Monique C

A central theme in my projects is to unravel clinical hypotheses based on observations through imaging techniques in fetal life. In general, these hypotheses are often too simple in the beginning, as fetal development is complex in timing and interaction of events. I was the first to explain the true origin of increased nuchal translucency and recently proofed that the current concept of neurodevelopment in cardiac defects is not solely caused by impaired flow or oxygenation towards the fetal brain. Another focus in my work is the evaluation of population screening and clinical care in fetal CHD. I started the regional fetal registry PRECOR (LUMC-AUMC) which is the largest prospective registry of fetal cardiac cases globally and the source of many publications by our group. Adjacent to PRECOR, a biobank is started, which collects tissue and DNA of cases with congenital heart defects (CHD). The collected images are an important source for teaching and training of sonographers, and are used for the development of automated image analysis of both brain and heart. Furthermore the Dutch fetal echocardiography course was initiated by me and is extremely popular, because it combines clinical expertise with anatomical demonstrations. In patient care, I changed the immediate postnatal care for neonates with CHD in our center with a focus on family care in the majority of cases, but the organisation of the possibility to immediate intervention when necessary. In collaboration with the department of clinical genetics the LUMC was one of the first to routinely offer array, and the first to offer WES for this population. Furthermore I studied the images of CHD cases that were missed in the screening program, which gave important insights in the development of fetal CHD, as well as feed back to the organisations that monitor these programs or develop guidelines.