The Critical Role of Pulse Oximetry Screening for Congenital Heart Disease and Patent Ductus Arteriosus in Newborns.

INTRODUCTION

Congenital heart disease (CHD) is diagnosed with high prevalence. Pulse oximetry and clinical examination are screening tools to aid in obtaining a CHD diagnosis.

MATERIALS AND

METHODS

We conducted a retrospective longitudinal study over three years, screening 1188 newborns admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) during the first 72 hours of life.

RESULTS

Two hundred one newborns were diagnosed with CHD. Almost all (n=198) had a positive screening test during the 72 hours, while three had a negative screening test but were later diagnosed using echocardiography. The prevalence rate of CHD was 16.67%. A confusion matrix was constructed with 198 true positives (TP), 3 false negatives (FN), no false positives (FP), and 987 true negatives (TN). The sensitivity of the screening test was 98.51%, while the specificity was 100%, with no false positives. In our study, a total of nine deaths occurred due to CHD or complications of CHD. Using the Kaplan-Meier method, the survival probability appeared to be slightly above 0.9 (95.5%), indicating that almost all patients survived past 72 hours after being diagnosed with CHD.

CONCLUSION

Pulse oximetry is an effective, low-cost, and easy-to-use method that is useful for assessing and diagnosing CHD.