Development of a Heart Disease Screening System for School Children and Its Results in the Tokyo Area in 1980 : THE 6th CONFERENCE ON PREVENTION FOR RHEUMATIC FEVER AND RHEUMATIC HEART DISEASE

Abstract

After the revision of the School Health Law in Japan the systems for heart disease screening for school children showed a great advance and the computerized devices for automatic evaluation of selected leads ECG and PCG were developed rapidly and have been improved in Japan. Two systems of heart disease screening for school children have been developed, that is, the Tokyo system and the "ECG-PCG for all children system". The Tokyo system utilizes a questionaire, a physical examination by school physicians and a chest X-ray for the primary screening procedure and ECG-PCG for the secondary procedure. The "ECG-PCG for all children system" utilizes a questionaire, a chest X-ray and ECG-PCG. The superiority of the ECG-PCG system was shown in comparison with the Tokyo system. Nearly twice as many cases of congenital heart disease were detected by the ECG-PCG system as compared with the Tokyo system, and many cases were disclosed for the first time. The "ECG-PCG for all children system" will probably be more popular in the near future in accordance with the advance of computerized systems.