Nepal's noble echocardiography-database with video clips and color still images: a single individual's 6 years' experience at the Echocardiography Lab of Nepal Medical College, Teaching Hospital.

Echocardiographic reporting system is very poor in Nepal. No long-term feasibility and efficacy data about the echocardiography database with video clips has been studied. Snazzi Movie Studio S4 was used to convert analog video signals into MPEG2 and color photographs were converted into JPEG format for storage and use for the database. All together 2272 patients' echocardiography were performed by one individual prospectively at the Nepal Medical College Teaching Hospital from 10th January 2007 to 9th January 2012. Echocardiographic findings of these patients were evaluated. Mean age +/- SD were 44.4 +/- 28.7 years. Male female ratio was 0.8:1. Brahman/Chhetri were the usual ethnic group to undergo echocardiography (943, 41.5%), followed byjanajati (631, 27.8%) and newar (496, 21.8%). Age group of 60-69 years was the most common echo users (519, 22.8%). Total time for echocardiography/report writing with database compared to non database was 13.9 +/- 2.4 minutes vs. 12.3 +/- 0.8 minutes, p = 0.51. Out of all lesions, valvular lesions were the most common lesions detected (4885, 215%). Mild tricuspid regurgitation (1213, 53.4%) was the most common valvular lesion followed by mild mitral regurgitation (742, 32.7%). Patent foramen ovale was the most common congenital heart disease (32, 45.7%) followed by atrial septal defect (12, 17.1%). About one seventh of the total patients (318, 13.9%) had systolic dysfunction. Out of total chronic cor pulmonale (383, 16.9%), severe Pulmonary arterial dysfulction (PAH) was noted in more than one third of the patients (169, 44.1%).