Usefulness of echocardiography in the neonatal stage

Abstract

Introduction: echocardiography has been introduced in the Neonatal Care Units as a support tool in the diagnosis and therapeutic decision making. Objective: to describe the use of echocardiography in neonates treated at the Neonatal Care Unit of “Mariana Grajales” Hospital. Method: a descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out from September 2012 to July 2015. We included 167 infants who underwent an echocardiogram. The information obtained was recorded on a form that included perinatal and neonatal variables. For the statistical analysis were used: absolute frequency, relative, middle, standard deviation and independence test X2; the indices of diagnostic quality and the level of agreement between techniques were computed; everything was represented in tables and graphs. Results: 1,25 ± 0,7 studies per patient were realized, with preterm births (63,5%) and normopesos (71,9%) predominant, the main clinical condition that motivated the study was the heart murmur (50 ,9%), congenital heart disease (72,5%) were the most frequent echocardiographic diagnosis, Doppler ultrasonography showed higher diagnostic quality indexes, concordance level was 70%, which demonstrated the degree of efficacy of the two-dimensional and the clinical state of care predominated with sonographic examination performed between 24 and 72 hours. Conclusions: echocardiography has an important value in the diagnosis of clinical diseases present in the neonatal period.

Keywords

• recién nacido
• ecocardiografía
• ecocardiografía doppler