Introduction: Since the introduction and increased availability of echocardiography, the importance of heart auscultation in diagnosing valvular heart disease has been reduced. Nevertheless, auscultation is still important when deciding whether to refer a patient for further examination.
Materials and methods: A retrospective analysis was done of 2,907 consecutive patients admitted to a hospital in Copenhagen from 1 April 1998 to 31 March 1999. Auscultation, clinical history and echocardiography were performed within 24 hours of admittance.
Results: The prevalence of heart murmurs was 20.5%. The sensitivity and specificity of murmur found by auscultation and echocardiographic findings were 0.52 and 0.93, respectively. We found a positive predictive value of auscultation of 0.76 and a negative predictive value of 0.82.
Conclusion: The relationship between auscultation and echocardiography in diagnosing heart murmurs in non-selected patients admitted to hospital has not previously been described. Auscultation has a high specificity, indicating that such patients should be referred for echocardiography. Its sensitivity, however, is low, indicating that it is insufficient as a means of screening for valvular heart disease.