Potential role of omics technique in prenatal diagnosis of congenital heart defects

Congenital heart defect (CHD) is one of the most common birth defects and is the leading cause of neonatal death. Currently, there are no biomarkers available for prenatal diagnosis of CHD. Clinical strategies to diagnose CHD mostly depend on fetal echocardiography. Recent advances in omics techniques have opened up new possibilities for biomarker discoveries. In this review, we discuss recent advances in prenatal detection of CHD using biomarkers obtained by omics approaches, including genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and others. There is great potential in obtaining various kinds of parameters using omics studies to facilitate early and accurate diagnosis of CHD.