136 Gp auscultation for diagnosing valvular heart disease

What is it about?

Listening to the heart sounds with Stethoscope (cardiac auscultation) has been one of the primary clinical skills used to diagnose heart valve disease. The large scale use of Echocardiography worldwide has seen a major decline in this clinical skill among medical students, post graduate trainees and physicians. This paper aims to calculate the accuracy of cardiac auscultation in diagnosing heart valve disease in primary care.

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Why is it important?

With an ever increasing ageing population in developed countries the (degenerative) heart valve disease has become one of the most pressing medical conditions to treat now and in the future. There is no medical treatment of heart valve disease. The only treatment options are open heart surgery or percutaneous procedures. Lot of patients with heart valve disease do not develop symptoms until it becomes severe or critical. It is therefore important to diagnose heart valve disease possibly at an early stage prior to the development of complications.

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