News and Events
Newborn Screening for Heart Defects
Tacoma General Hospital, Women & Newborn Center, in collaboration with the Pediatric Heart Center at Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital, has begun a screening program to identify heart defects in newborns. This program is the first of its kind in the State of Washington, and aims to diagnose and treat heart defects early.Heart defects are the most common birth defect, occurring in 8-10 out of every 1,000 live births. Left undiagnosed and untreated, heart defects are the leading cause of newborn and infant death.
Although some babies will be diagnosed before birth or at birth, sometimes the diagnosis is not made until days, weeks, months or even years later. The signs and symptoms of heart defects can be subtle and may go unrecognized by parents, caregivers, and sometimes even health care providers. As an educational component of the study, parents will be provided with the signs and symptoms of heart defects in infants and children.
Early detection and early treatment lead to better outcomes. Most heart defects can be corrected or improved with surgery, procedures and/or medications. Any baby identified with a critical cardiac defect could have life-saving surgery performed prior to discharge from the hospital.
This study is being launched on Valentine's Day, which is also Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Day. The principle investigator is Dr. Ronald Woods, chief of pediatric cardiothoracic surgery at Mary Bridge Pediatric Heart Center. The study is supported in part by a grant from the Fraternal Order of the Eagles. Similar evaluations are underway at Vanderbilt University and University of Michigan.
The inspiration for the study came from a 14-month-old child in NY, who died from an undiagnosed heart defect in 2005. Mary Bridge and Tacoma General hope to name the new testing procedure after this child.
Newborn Screening Program
Pulse Oximetry Screening To Detect Congenital Heart Defects
MultiCare Health System’s Institutional Review Board recently approved a study to utilize pulse oximetry technology to screen normal newborns for congenital heart disease (CHD). Approximately 8-10 out of 1,000 babies are born with congenital heart defects, but finding babies with CHD is not easy.Current practice for screening newborns is to look for symptoms and listen for murmurs in early exams. More extensive cardiac screening has not been widely pursued at MultiCare or elsewhere because current diagnostics do not make good first-level screening tools. Electrocardiograms (EKGs) are prone to false positives and echocardiograms, while more accurate, are also more expensive.
A recent research trial of pulse oximetry screening for CHD was conducted with approximately 11,000 babies who had passed stethoscope evaluations. Three potentially life-threatening cardiac defects were found in the trial and two defects were missed (they were later found and treated). But a better-than-50 percent detection rate is good considering the cost of the screening is low, given that pulse oximetry equipment is readily available.
Pediatric cardiologists and women and newborn service providers believe that the addition of these screenings will improve the level of care for newborns at MultiCare’s Tacoma General Hospital and add to the research being conducted in this area.
Grants from the Fraternal Order of Eagles help support this screening protocol. These grant dollars will support education and communication for physicians and other health care personnel, as well as for families whose children will participate in the screening. This research is scheduled to begin in early 2008.
For more information about this research effort, please contact the Mary Bridge Pediatric Heart Program at 253-403-3527.
Petition
Newborn Screening for Heart Defects
A petition to make pulse oximetry testing part of the newborn screening panel has been sponsored by Saving Little Hearts."Evaluation of Universal Pulse Oximetry as a means to detect Critical CHDs
Congenital heart disease treatments have a relatively brief history, but critical advances are being made at an amazing rate. An important issue yet to be addressed, though, is the creation of a standard of care in newborn screening for congenital heart disease. One such test that has been tied to the presence of congenital heart disease is the pulse oximetry screening. As in hearing screening (the first public health-sponsored screening of newborns to not use the Guthrie specimen), the procedure is noninvasive, simple to execute, easy to interpret, and can be performed during the nursery stay. In the last few years there have been research projects and publications showing the need for pulse oximetry testing to be a part of the newborn screening panel. I urge you to take a look at the research that has been done as well as research projects that are currently being done and make pulse oximetry testing a part of the newborn screening panel today."
Show your support by signing the petition online.
Links
Mary Bridge doctors bring medical care to children in Cambodia; Mary Bridge team does vital work in Vietnam
Inside the newborn ICU at Tacoma General - Click here to watch video of heart surgery: Patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) ligation
Mary Bridge and Tacoma General team up to screen for congenital heart defects
Create a CarePage for your loved one
Future parents' lifestyle choices affect babies' risk of heart defects
A Tale of Two Hearts: Families share a close bond after similar hospital experiences
A Tale of Two Hearts: Photo gallery
A Baby's Heart: The case for screening newborns for congenital heart defects
Mary Bridge, Swedish establish joint pediatric heart surgery program