Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Jan 11:2024:3279878.
doi: 10.1155/2024/3279878. eCollection 2024.

Newborn Pulse Oximetry Screening for Detecting Congenital Heart Disease: Experience at a Tertiary Care Center

Ziad R Bulbul  1 , Nour K Younis  2 , Farah Malaeb  1 , Haytham Bou Hussein  1 , Mariam Arabi  1 , Fadi Bitar  1
Affiliations

Newborn Pulse Oximetry Screening for Detecting Congenital Heart Disease: Experience at a Tertiary Care Center

Ziad R Bulbul et al. Int J Pediatr. .

Abstract

Background: Congenital heart disease (CHD) remains the number one birth defect worldwide. Pulse oximetry screening (POS) is a widely used CHD screening modality effective in detecting critical lesions. This study is aimed at assessing the accuracy and cost-effectiveness of POS in a cohort of term well-babies admitted to a regular nursery in a tertiary care center.

Methods: We reviewed the charts of term babies admitted to our regular nursery over a period of one year. The results of POS and the findings of echocardiography were collected. Similarly, we explored the records of our fetal echocardiography program to identify the fetuses screened for CHD during the same period.

Results: 900 term babies were born and admitted to newborn nursery at our center, and 69 fetuses were evaluated by our fetal cardiology team during the study period. None of our term babies had a positive POS at birth or 24 hours of age. However, 56 babies had a cardiac echo before hospital discharge due to suspicious findings on physical examination or a family history of CHD. A simple noncritical CHD was noted in 10 of them. Additionally, 53 babies underwent echocardiography within the first five years of life; a simple CHD was noted in 6 of them. In parallel, 21 of our fetuses were found to have CHD: 16 simple CHD and 5 critical CHD (CCHD).

Conclusion: Despite its cost-effectiveness and efficacy in screening for CCHD, POS is suboptimal for detecting simple CHD. In the absence of a proper prenatal screening and fetal echocardiography program, POS remains a cost-effective modality for detecting CCHD.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic diagram of the cohort of term babies. 900 term babies were born at our center over a one-year period. A cardiac echo was offered to 109 babies either before discharge from nursery or within the first five years of life. A simple noncritical CHD was noted in 16 babies.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Schematic diagram of the cohort of fetuses referred for fetal echocardiography. 69 fetuses were offered a fetal echo at our center. 21 were diagnosed with a CHD; 16 had a simple CHD, and 5 had a critical CHD.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Pulse oximetry screening algorithm.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Liu Y., Chen S., Zühlke L., et al. Global birth prevalence of congenital heart defects 1970-2017: Updated systematic review and meta-analysis of 260 studies. International Journal of Epidemiology . 2019;48(2):455–463. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyz009. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wu W., He J., Shao X. Incidence and mortality trend of congenital heart disease at the global, regional, and national level, 1990-2017. Medicine . 2020;99(23, article e20593) doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000020593. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Marelli A. J., Mackie A. S., Ionescu-Ittu R., Rahme E., Pilote L. Congenital heart disease in the general population. Circulation . 2007;115(2):163–172. doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.106.627224. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bitar F. F., Baltaji N., Dbaibo G., Abed el-Jawad M., Yunis K. A., Obeid M. Congenital heart disease at a tertiary care center in Lebanon. Middle East Journal of Anaesthesiology . 1999;15(2):159–164. - PubMed
    1. Frank L. H., Bradshaw E., Beekman R., Mahle W. T., Martin G. R. Critical congenital heart disease screening using pulse oximetry. The Journal of Pediatrics . 2013;162(3):445–453. doi: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2012.11.020. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources