Clinical evaluation of cardiac function in patients with rheumatic heart disease

AIM:To explore a novel method for evaluating cardiac function in patients with rheumatic heart disease. METHODS: Heart sound signals were sampled randomly from 100 inpatients with rheumatic heart disease in our hospital from January to November 2011 (experimental group) and 100 relatives of patients without history of angiocardiopathy (control group). Heart rate, D/S ratio and S1/S2 ratio in the two groups were analyzed and compared. RESULTS: The heart rate, D/S ratio and S1/S2 ratio in experiment group were significantly different from those in the control group. CONCLUSION: Patients with rheumatic heart disease have lower levels of cardiac reserve. Monitoring heart sound signals is a new quantitative evaluation to assess patients’ preoperative cardiac reserve and operative tolerance.