Background: Cardiovascular malformations are the commonest form of congenital defects and could result in significant morbidity. Antenatal and early postnatal detection is still unreliable, especially in developing countries and low-income communities. Pulse oximetry (PO) could have an important value in the detection of cardiac lesions among asymptomatic newborns.
Patients and methods:This was prospective observational study conducted at nursery units at Sohag university hospital and Sohag general hospital. Over a period of one year, the period from October 2016 through October 2017. Oxygen saturation was measured by pulse oxymetery. Echocardiography was done for babies with positive screening within 24h of screening
Results: The study included 830 apparently-well babies, there were 25 babies (3%) show positive screening. Sensitivity of POS for CHD was 88.64% .The specificity was 91.67%. The false-positive rate was 4%, a positive predictive value (PPV) of 92%, a negative predictive value (NPV) of 88%.
Conclusion: Pulse oximetry screening (POS) was found to be safe, simple, noninvasive, reasonably accurate, effective, and has high specificity for early diagnosis of CHD in apparently healthy newborns in our locality.