Experience of newly constructed echocardiography-database with video clips and color still images at the Echocardiography Lab of Nepal Medical College Teaching Hospital.

ABSTRACT

Reporting system after performing echocardiography is very poor in almost all hospitals of Nepal. Special but simple attempt effort has been introduced to transfer analog video images and color still images of echocardiographic investigation into a desk top computer using a locally available imported video capture system, Snazzi Movie Studio S4. Analog video signals are converted into MPEG2 and still color snaps are converted into JPEG format. Window media player can be used later on to review the video clips. All together 1059 patients including pediatric, adults and geriatric patients underwent echocardiographic evaluation at the Echo-lab of Nepal Medical College Teaching Hospital during 10th January 2007 to 9th May 2008. Age ranged from 2 months to 98 years. Mean+SD was 52.4 +/- 18.5 years. Male/female ratio was 0.81. More than half of the patients (64.3%) came from Kathmandu. Brahman/Chhetri (478, 45.1%), Tamang, Sherpa etc 278 (26.3%) and Newar (226, 21.3%) were the main echo-users. Elderly age group (>60 yr) comprised of more than one third of the patients (42.0%) followed by the age group of 45-59 yr (27.7%). No abnormality was detected in 133 (12.6%) patients. Valvular heart disease was noticed in more than half of patients (60.7%), followed by diastolic dysfunction (393, 14.0%) and left ventricular hypertrophy (210, 7.5%). This database is not very expensive but demand minimal extra time and energy. It will be a valuable tool to increase diagnostic accuracy and a great resource for academic purpose aiding in the improvement of cardiac care in Nepal.