Heart Murmurs

Heart Murmurs

What is a heart murmur?

The sounds of the heart are produced by the opening and closing of its valves. A murmur is a sound produced by the abnormal circulation and friction of blood against malfunctioning structures within the heart or near the heart. The causes of this can vary, some of them being:

Malfunctioning cardiac valves
Holes on the cardiac walls
The result of a corrective surgery for heart malformations
Fever
Anemia

How are these murmurs assessed?

The doctor will evaluate many aspects of a murmur, including the sound volume, period duration and intensity.

Systolic murmur – appears during a heart’s muscle contraction, can be of ejection (blood flowing through a narrowed vessel or an irregular valve) or regurgitation
Diastolic murmur – heard during the heart’s muscle relaxation between two beats, these murmurs are produced by mitral or tricuspid valves narrowing or by regurgitation of pulmonary or aortic valves
Continuous murmur – heard all along the cardiac cycle

Cardiac murmurs can be congenital or acquired.

Do all murmurs indicate heart disease?

No, sometimes a murmur can be normal, heard in the chest of a person with fever or anemia. These murmurs will disappear when the condition has gone.

Some children may have a murmur known as innocent. This is not associated with any disease, and its common to observe its disappearance in adulthood. The doctor may ask you to perform some tests on the child to make sure this is an innocent murmur, but it is important to study each patient because, in some cases, the murmur can be related to a real cardiac disease.

Most of the cardiac diseases related to murmurs can be corrected either by catheterization or by surgery.

Heart Sounds