Heart disease screening of school children using abbreviated electrocardiogram and phonocardiogram

By recording the electrocardiogram and phonocardiogram simultaneously using three abbreviated leads, 23,216 (6 and 7 years of age) elementary school children were screened for heart diseases. One hundred and one cases (0.44%) with congenital heart diseases, ten cases (0.04%) with acquired heart diseases and 100 cases (0.43%) with electrocardiographic abnormalities were discovered. From these observations, we conclude that this screening method applied on school children is useful in discovering the previously unrecognized heart diseases, especially atrial septal defect, primary myocardial disease and arrhythmia.