Clinical Cases - What Is Your Decision?

Introduction Cardiac auscultation is one of the most useful tools for detection and diagnosis of cardiac arrhythmias and murmurs. Combined with the history of the horse, then cardiac auscultation is often sufficient to establish a diagnosis. However, the clinical significance of the arrhythmia or murmur may be difficult to determine by auscultation alone. Therefore, para-clinical tests such as electrocardiography (ECG), echocardiography, blood samples and exercise testing are needed to estimate the severity of the condition and whether it is likely to affect the horse’s performance. This case based presentation is an opportunity to test your own skills and gain insight into the description and interpretation of some common auscultatory findings. Each case will be presented with a history and a brief clinical description accompanied by cardiac sounds. Afterwards, the audience decides how the clinical work up of the case should progress. For the following cases, please listen to the recordings and categorize the heart sounds according to heart rate, cardiac murmurs and rhythm. Based on these findings, a tentative diagnosis can be proposed and the audience decides which supplemental paraclinical tests are required. […]