Antenatal ear examination: When, how and why?

Antenatal ear examination is an integral part of the thorough examination of the fetal face. The discovery of an anomaly, whether it is made by chance or during a complementary in-depth examination, leads the practitioner to determine its isolated or associated character, in order to characterise its possible belonging to a syndromic entity. In this context, the realization of genetic analysis more precise and wider allowing a return of the results in a time compatible with an evolutive pregnancy, gives to the geneticist a central role in the management of these couples. The main challenge lies in obtaining a set of concordant clinical and biological clues, enabling the genetic results identified to be interpreted correctly, the optimised functioning of the ultrasound practitioner - geneticist duo is therefore fundamental. This results in a complex information to deliver, in the fact that the clinical translation of an ear anomaly in antenatal can go from an isolated aesthetic anomaly to a genetic syndrome with neurodevelopmental disorder. The objective of this work is to describe, from a methodological analysis of antenatal ears, the accessible malformative entities, isolated or associated, and to discuss the problems in the need or not to propose their screening. (c) C 2022 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.