The Role of Pulse Oximetry in the Diagnosis of Congenital Heart Disease Screening

INTRODUCTION: Congenital heart defects (CHD) are common congenital malformations and cause mortality and morbidity in the neonatal period. Therefore, the diagnosis of critical CHDs is important. In this study, we aimed to present our critical congenital heart disease screening results with pulse oximetry and to emphasize the importance of screening.
METHODS: All newborns born in our hospital between January 2020 and January 2021 and with a gestational age >34 weeks were included in the study. A total of 1605 newborns were screened with pulse oximetry device.
RESULTS: The median birth weeks of 1605 newborns screened to detect critical congenital heart disease were 38 weeks (34–41 weeks), and their birth weight was 3065 g (2035–5040 g). Of the newborns included in the study, 767 (47.8%) were male and 838 (52.2%) were female. While 1591 (99%) of the babies included in the study passed the screening, 14 (1%) remained. False negativity was detected in one of the babies who underwent the screening. Critical CHDs were observed in three (21.4%) of the patients, while false positivity was detected in 11 (78.6%) of the infants who failed the screening. The false positive rate of the screening test in all babies was 0.6%. In our study, the sensitivity of CHD screening with pulse oximetry was 75%, the specificity was 99.3%, the positive predictive value was 21.4%, and the negative predictive value was 99.9%.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: We thought that since its incidence is not low, it is a life-threatening condition, and early diagnosis and effective interventions are available, CHD screening with pulse oximetry should be performed on all newborns and included in the newborn screening program.