Heart Disease Screening in School

THE importance of early detection of unrecognized heart disease in school children has been adequately emphasized and various technics of screening the school-age child have been suggested and attempted.'-6 Comparisons of results have been difficult because of a lack of true prevalence rates among the populations examined.1 2, 4, 7 Most recently a mass field trial of screening for heart disease, among 35,000 Chicago school children, with use of high-fidelity-taped heartsound recordings was accomplished and reported.1 The methods, results, and costs were reviewed by the American Heart Association Committee on Heart-Sound Recording, a subcommittee of the Committee on Community Program. The following investigations were suggested: (1) A comparison of heart-sound taping with clinical screening should be made. (2) Sensitivity and specificity studies of a large group of children with proved heart disease as subjects should be repeated. (3) The feasibility of using lower cost, portable equipment to minimize the high reported cost of $2.00 a child screened, and $2,000.00 a case discovered, should be investigated. It was further recommended that approval of this technic of screening be withheld, in terms of national application, until the above investigations are completed and evaluated. The Instrumentation Unit, Heart Disease Control Program, U. S. Public Health Service, developed and recommended portable recording and playback equipment for use in field trials of heart-sound screening. The following study was undertaken with this equipment.