645 The Significance of Cardiac Murmurs in Different Age Groups

Abstract

Introduction: Heart murmurs in childhood are detected at any age Echocardiography is the gold standard to diagnose or rule out cardiac malformations As this tool is not always available, these children need a referral to a Paediatric Cardiologist, which involves time and increases the workload of the physicians and causes parental anxiety. Aim: The aim was to analyze the significance of cardiac murmurs in different age groups with respect to the probability to detect true cardiac malformations. Methods: Data of patients referred with cardiac murmurs to our murmur screening clinic was collected, separated into different age groups and analyzed Group 1 consisted children with murmurs during 1st week of life, group 2 between 2 - 8 weeks, group 3 between 8 weeks - 1 year, group 4 beyond 1 year of life. Result: N= 148 patients N=; Murmur still present; Abnormal Echo of those with murmur Group 1; 48; 46% (22/48); 68% (15/22) Group 2; 45; 51% (23/45); 57% (13/23) Group 3; 24; 54% (13/24); 46% (6/31) Group 4; 31;87% (27/31);12% (3/27) Main abnormalities were pulmonary stenosis, peripheral pulmonary stenosis, ventricular septal defects and atrial septal defects. Conclusion: Our data showed that with increasing age of the patients the cardiac murmur is more likely to persist but it also showed that the probability to detect an abnormal echocardiographical finding is more likely in the neonatal group of patients. Nevertheless larger studies with more patient numbers are needed to verify our findings.