Several recent publications have shown that changes in heart murmurs after the inhalation of amyl nitrite may be of diagnostic aid (Vogelpoel et al., 1959; Barlow and Shillingford, 1958). The effect of amyl nitrite on intracardiac heemodynamics and intracardiac heart sounds has been studied extensively by Vogelpoel et al. (1960, 1961) and Schrire et al. (1961). For the past four years amyl nitr...

Myxomas are the commonest primary cardiac tumours. They may be asymptomatic, and picked up incidentally, or be the cause of congestive heart failure, arrhythmias and/or murmurs. Echocardiography is necessary for diagnosis. Surgical resection is recommended to prevent further complications. A rare symptomatic ventricular myxoma is presented in this case report.

conclusions with a thorough preoperative assessment incorporating focused echocardiography, anaesthetists are in the unique position to enhance their role as perioperative physicians and influence short and long term outcomes of their patients. context patients with undifferentiated systolic murmurs present commonly during the perioperative period. traditional bedside assessment and auscultatio...

A survey was conducted on 12 050 Black schoolchildren, aged 2 to 18 years, in the South Western Townships of Johannesburg (Soweto), and the prevalence of non-ejection systolic clicks and late systolic murmurs was determined. One or both of these auscultatory findings were detected in 168 children, yielding a prevalence rate of 13-99 per 1000 in the school population. A female preponderance of 1...

Calibration of a phonocardiograph is more difficult than calibration of an electrocardiograph and the clinical value of the procedure is less obvious. The loudness of the heart sounds and murmurs at the front of the chest does not depend exclusively on cardiac activity but is influenced also by the position of the heart in the chest, by the nature and thickness of the chest wall, and by extrane...