JOURNAL SCAN
Physiological Heart
Murmurs are More
Common in Our
Veterinary Patients
than We May Think
Drut A, Ribas T, Floch F, et al. Prevalence of physiological heart
murmurs in a population of 95 healthy young dogs. J Small
Anim Pract. 2015;56(2):112-118.
Summarised by Jennifer L. Garcia, DVM, DACVIM
Murmurs may not only be limited to specific
breeds or growing dogs.
Why they did it
Researchers sought to determine the prevalence of
physiological heart murmurs (i.e. a murmur in the
absence of a structural abnormality of the heart and
great vessels) in young, apparently healthy dogs between the ages of 1 and 5 years and of various breeds.
What they did
Between November 2012 and July 2013, researchers
enrolled 95 dogs (48 males and 47 females) with heart
murmurs that were identified at the time of routine
vaccination. All dogs were in apparent good health,
were between 1 and 5 years of age (median age 32
months) and represented 30 breeds.
Cardiac auscultation for each dog was performed by
at least three examiners—a board-certified internist,
a cardiology resident and an internal medicine resident—all of whom were blinded to the others’ findings. When noted, heart murmurs were graded as follows:
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Grade I/VI: Faint murmur; only heard with particular effort
Grade II/VI: Faint murmur; clearly heard by an experienced examiner
Grade III/VI: Moderately loud; easily auscultated
Grade IV/VI: Loud murmur with no palpable thrill
Grade V/VI: Very loud murmur with thrill; inaudible after removing stethoscope from chest wall
Grade VI/VI:Very loud murmur; thrill still audible
after removing stethoscope from chest wall
Dogs with arrhythmias or any clinical or biologic signs
of disease were excluded. Indirect blood pressure
evaluation was performed in all dogs, and the average of five consistent measurements was recorded.
A patient with a systolic pressure > 180 mm Hg was
Ar X