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(Circulation. 1959;20:887.)
© 1959 American Heart Association, Inc.

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Use of Tape-Recorded Heart Sounds in Screening of Children for Heart Disease

JACQUES M. SMITH M.D.; ROBERT A. MILLER M.D.; CARL MARIENFELD M.D.; BETTY HAHNEMAN M.D.; JOEL WILLARD B.S.

An automated tape-recording unit for use in screening large populations of school children for heart disease has been developed and field tested. A technician can produce good quality apex and base heart sound recordings from 250 children during an average school day. The physician can listen to these recordings at a rate of 140 children per hour, recalling for examination each child considered to have an abnormal recording. Since almost all heart disease in children has some acoustic manifestation, a screening technic based on the heart sounds seems to be a logical one. The studies done with this unit have demonstrated its ability to select children with heart disease from a large number of normal children. Agreement between readers is satisfactory, and the number of "false positives" is considered reasonable.