CHENNAI: Soon, cardiologists in India will be able to tell the measurements for various chambers of the heart of a normal person among Indian population based on scientific evidence and not on personal experience to diagnose heart diseases. Indian Academy of Echocardiography (IAE) will conduct a multi-centric study to know the values of a normal person’s heart among Indian population which measurements will enable them to diagnose heart diseases.
“The heart chambers of over 70,000 people will be measured at over 70 government and private institutions during the study. In Chennai, the study will be conducted at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, Stanley Government Medical College Hospital and Billroth Hospitals," said S Shanmuga Sundaram, immediate past president, Indian Academy of Echocardiography speaking to Express on the sidelines of 23rd annual ECHO India 2018 four-day conference in the city.
“Based on Western guidelines, normal values of chambers of the heart are; width of the left ventricle is 4.5 to 5 cm, left atrium 3 to 4 cm and right ventricle 2.5 to 3 cm and width of right atrium 3 to 4 cm.The study will be conducted from next month. Later, we will collate the data and release the standard guidelines on normative data to help diagnose the heart diseases” he said.
“We will conduct the study among normal persons who accompany the patients to the hospital. We will seek permission from the attenders to measure size of the heart chambers. So far, we were following only Western guidelines” he said.
“The problem is that, the dimensions are larger in Western population as they are tall and are well built personality as against Indians who are short. So, the size of the heart chambers varies. We are now able to tell which is abnormal heart based on personal experience, but there is no scientific evidence,” he said.
Meanwhile, about 2,600 cardiologists and physicians attended the four-day conference, organised by Indian Academy of Echocardiography here and presented papers on various topics. The cardiologists also discussed latest developments on ECHO, procedures and diagnosis.