E. Port1, C. J. Hunter1, C. Buonpane1, L. Sands1, S. Kujawa1, M. Reynolds1 1Ann and Robert H Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago,Chicago, IL, USA
Introduction:
Symptoms including chest pain and palpitations are commonly described by pediatric patients with pectus deformity. Cardiac anomalies and associated symptoms are thought to be less common in patients with Pectus Carinatum (PC) compared with patients with Pectus Excavatum (PE), however no literature supports this presumption. Echocardiogram (ECHO) is a common tool used to assess heart structure and function. We hypothesized that a screening ECHO would 1) determine the relationship between patient-reported symptoms and ECHO findings, and 2) define the incidence of cardiac defects in patients with PC.
Methods:
This is an IRB approved retrospective review of all PC patients who received an ECHO from 2015-2018 at a tertiary care children’s hospital. We collected data from electronic health records related to ECHO findings and patient-reported symptoms including chest pain and palpitations with activity. Descriptive statistics were used to assess correlation between findings.
Results:
We identified 131 PC patients who received an ECHO with complete data available for analysis and compared these data with that of the general population. Of these, 30 (22.9%) reported chest pain and 8 (6.1%) reported palpitations. After reviewing ECHO results, we found that 4 (3.05%) had mitral valve prolapse and 9 (6.87%) had aortic root dilation. Additionally, 18 patients (13.7%) had other abnormal ECHO findings including three patients (2.29%) with heart distortion, two (1.53%) with coronary artery fistula, and one (0.76%) with dextrocardia. However, chi-squared analysis showed that patient-reported symptoms were not significantly associated with abnormal ECHO findings.
Conclusion:
Our results demonstrate that chest pain and palpitations do occur in the PC population but may not be related to abnormal ECHO findings. Given the increased number of heart abnormalities compared with the general population, we recommend screening ECHOs in patients with PC regardless of symptoms.