Sensi Used to Detect Heart Defects in Children with Cleft Palates

Sensi Used to Detect Heart Defects in Children with Cleft Palates

Sensi, a decision support software package designed by Diacoustics Medical Devices, a spin-off company of the Stellenbosch University, to assist medical examiners in heart auscultation, is currently being used by the La Sonrie Conmigo foundation in Venezuela to detect congenital heart diseases under children with cleft palates.

La Sonrie Conmigo is a nonprofit organization led by parents of a child with this condition and is responsible for helping children with cleft lips and palates in Venezuela.  They provide special feeding bottles, feeding instructions, family support, free operations in Venezuela or the UK depending on the severity of the case as well as training for doctors to prepare them better for operations.

Cronje met Darko Moskovitz, founder of La Sonrie Conmigo and the father of a child with a cleft palate, at a medical product show in Düsseldorf. Mr Moskovitz spends his time helping children with cleft palates in the Amazon and elsewhere in the world. Dr Brian Sommerlad, a British doctor, is the clinical leader of the team. “Mr Moskovitz was very interested in our product, because many of the children suffer from heart conditions. At that stage I could not trade there, so I donated a stethoscope and software programme to them on the condition that they give report back to us about the product.

According to Thys Cronje from Diacoustic Medical Devices, congenital heart defects occur in 8 out of 1000 babies born with cleft palates, as opposed to 60 to a 100 out of 1000 among those without the condition.

The Sensi software, which distinguishes between normal/physiological and pathological heart murmurs by analysing the acoustic heart and ECG signals captured with the WelchAllyn Meditron Analyser, is currently being used as a screening tool to detect congenital heart defects in these babies. 

Although formal feedback is still being awaited, Cronje says Darko Moskovitz, founder of La Sonrie Conmigo, is positive about the product after 140 children were scanned.

Read more about Sensi at http://www.diacoustic.co.za/