Evaluation of children with cardiac murmur using Nadas criteria
Background: Pediatricians often encounter children with heart murmurs during routine follow up visits or while assessment of intercurrent illness. Clinical differentiation between pathologic and innocent murmurs would be important. It is important to identify those children who need further evaluation. The aim of the study was to evaluate whether Nadas criteria can be applied as a screening test to decide on further workup.Methods: This was a prospective descriptive study done in Government T. D. Medical College, Alappuzha over a period of 12 months from July 2013 to June 2014. All children in the age group one month to 12 years, attending the outpatient department were screened for presence of murmur of grade 2 and more. They were further evaluated carefully. They were also studied for association of variables like maternal age, birthweight, dysmorphism and family history of heart disease. Nadas criteria was then applied to the study population. A score of 2 and 1 were given to major and minor criteria respectively.Results: 3070 children were screened. 150 children were detected to have murmur of grade2 and more.66 children were detected to have a structural heart disease by an echo study.74% of the study population in the age group <1 year had a heart disease.8 out of 78 children with a Nadas score of 1 and 10 out of 24 with a score of 2 had a heart disease. All with a score 3 and more had congenital heart disease (CHD).Conclusions: Nadas criteria can be used as screening test with a sensitivity of 87% and specificity of 83%.