Evaluation of Cardiac Murmurs in Neonates

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Cardio vascular malformations are the most common congenital malformations. Early recognition of congenital heart disease is important in the neonatal period, as many of them may be fatal if undiagnosed. AIM: To study the epidemiology of neonatal cardiac murmurs. To identify clinical characteristics which differentiates pathological murmur from functional murmurs to assess the reliability of clinical evaluation in diagnosing congenital heart disease? METHODS: The study population included all neonates admitted in a Hospital in Visakhapatnam to the NICU, postnatal ward, attending pediatric OPD and were detected to have cardiac murmurs. It was a cross sectional study over a period of 16 months. A clinical diagnosis was made based on history and clinical examination. Then Chest X ray and ECG were done in symptomatic infants. Echo cardiography was done in all neonates for confirmation of diagnosis, the neonates were again examined daily till they were in hospital and during the follow up visit at 6 weeks. RESULTS: A total of 61 neonates were included and was conducted over a period of 16 months. The incidence of cardiac murmurs among intramural neonates was 13.5 for 1000 live births. Most frequent symptom was fast breathing in 10[16.4%] cases. VSD was the most common diagnosis clinically in 19[31.47%] babies. The most frequent diagnosis was acyanotic complex congenital heart disease, Only intra mural neonates were considered for the incidence of murmurs and the incidence of cardiac murmurs among them babies was 13.5 for 1000 live in 23[37.7%] cases followed by 10[16.4%] cases each of VSD and ASD respectively. Overall in our study 73.77% [45 cases] of the murmurs were diagnosed correctly and confirmed by Echocardiography. INTERPRETATIONS & CONCLUSIONS: 1. It is possible to make clinical diagnosis in many cases of congenital heart diseases. 2. The functional murmurs could be differentiated from those arising from structural heart disease. 3. By evaluation of these infants only based on murmurs few congenital heart diseases be missed.

A study on clinical and echocardiographic evaluation of neonatal cardiac murmurs and their follow up at 6 weeks of age

“…In the present study 13% of innocent murmur at 6 th week of follow-up was found to have structural heart disease which was almost in par with the results of the other studies [25,26]. Most of the babies (75.5%) in our study had grade 2 or grade 3 murmur.…”