Development of a detector of heart murmurs

Resumen

The most common cardiac afflictions are the heart murmurs, which are defined as abnormal noises during cardiac cycles. These abnormal noises are symptoms of a variety of cardiac pathologies, some of which can become very serious and put at risk the life of a person. Nowadays, heart murmurs can be precisely detected just by the combination of advanced equipment and a specialist physician. However, these resources are costly and scarce. Faced with this reality, is that the need for a low-cost and easy-to-use medical device that helps nonspecialists improve their ability to detect and diagnose heart murmurs was identified. This investigation presents a prototype design proposal for a medical device, that would give capability to record, analyze and provide the first diagnosis of most common heart valve pathologies. The design proposal was evaluated by a functional diagnostic test, using a simulator programed by computer. The results obtained show a sensitivity of 91.7% and a specificity of 82.6%, which are acceptable results compared to assessments made by other researchers of the topic. It is concluded that the algorithm works properly during the initial assessment; however, it is required to perform additional evaluations with a larger sample of heart sound records, in order to achieve better statistical determination of configuration parameters.