Heart murmur in children is usually innocent murmur, but in a small number of cases, it is pathologic murmur suggestive of cardiac diseases. A new study shows that disappearance of heart murmur while standing reliably rules out pathologic heart murmurs. This finding can be useful to distinguish between physiologic (innocent) and pathologic (organic) heart murmurs. Heart murmur is an important clinical finding and one of the most common reasons for referral to cardiologists.
Although differences between physiologic and pathologic murmurs are well known, primary care physicians frequently refer their pediatric patients to cardiologists for the fear of missing a heart disease diagnosis. Therefore, a simple and robust clinical test to exclude cardiac disease in healthy children could prevent these unnecessary referrals. A study involving 12050 schoolchildren aged 2-18 years, the prevalence…
