Back to Search Start Over

Assessment of term and preterm breath sounds using digital stethoscope technology.

Authors :
Zhou L.
Ramanathan A.
Pharande P.
Zohra F.-T.
Marzbanrad F.
Malhotra A.
Zhou L.
Ramanathan A.
Pharande P.
Zohra F.-T.
Marzbanrad F.
Malhotra A.
Publication Year :
2019

Abstract

Background: Digital stethoscope (DS) technology has been used to assess normal and abnormal breath sounds in children. However, this technology has not been used to describe characteristics of breath sounds in preterm and term neonates. Method(s): A commercially available DS and smartphone software was used to record breath sounds of self-ventilating preterm and term neonates for one minute on day 2 of life. Recordings were extracted, filtered and spectral analysis performed to assess parameters including peak width (PW), spectrum slope (SL), area under the regression line (PLN) and mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC). PW, SL and PLN depend on the distribution of sound power in the frequency domain, while MFCCs represent smoothed log magnitude spectra in the nonlinear mel-scale of frequency and are known to depend on chest shape and resonance of breath sounds. Result(s): Thirty neonates were studied. After exclusions due to sound quality, 13 preterm (mean (SD) gestational age 32.8 (1.6) weeks, birth weight 1926.6 (429.4) grams), and 14 term neonates (38.8 (1.4) weeks, 3470.7(481.3) grams, p < 0.001) were analysed. There were no significant differences in PW, SL, or PLN between preterm and term infants. However, significant differences were noted between preterm and term MFCCs in scales 3-6 (p values of difference ranging between 0.002 to 0.05). Conclusion(s): Recording of breath sounds using DS is quick and feasible and showed no major differences between preterm and term self-ventilating infants. DS technology may pick up subtle differences related to inherent chest wall and lung resonance characteristics of preterm neonates.

Details

Database :
OAIster
Publication Type :
Electronic Resource
Accession number :
edsoai.on1305138117
Document Type :
Electronic Resource