Menu

Heart Murmurs at a Glance

by | 27 Mar, 2020

Cardiology Cardiovascular Examination Heart Murmurs at a Glance
Login

Login to enrol on courses and monitor progress

Cardiology Cardiovascular Examination Heart Murmurs at a Glance

Normal Heart Sounds

Normally, only heart sounds S1 and S2 can be heard. Murmurs occur if there is turbulent blood flow, which usually occurs as a result of valve pathology.
Normal heart sounds

Normal heart sounds and timing of pulse

Systolic Murmurs

TypeEjection systolicPansystolic
Characteristicsejection systolic murmurmidsystolic murmur
Causes
  1. Aortic stenosis
  2. Pulmonary stenosis
  3. Hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM)
  4. Atrial septal defect
  5. Tetralogy of Fallot
  1. Mitral regurgitation
  2. Mitral valve prolapse
  3. Tricuspid regurgitation
Mechanism of murmurTurbulent blood flow caused by travelling through tight spaceBlood travels back into the heart against normal blood flow

Diastolic Murmurs

TypeEarly diastolicMid-diastolic
Characteristicsearly diastolic murmurmiddiastolic murmur
Causes
  1. Aortic regurgitation
  2. Pulmonary regurgitation
  1. Mitral stenosis
  2. Tricuspid stenosis
Mechanism of murmurBlood travels back into the heart against normal blood flowTurbulent blood flow caused by travelling through tight space

Continuous/Machinery murmurs

Continuous murmurs occur when there is a pressure gradient present throughout the cardiac cycle. Thus, the murmur is heard during both systole and diastole.

Causes

Patent ductus arteriosus

Flow murmurs

Flow murmurs are innocent, benign murmurs that are especially common in young patients. They are characterised by the following:
  1. Systolic only
  2. Sound soft
  3. Varies with posture
  4. No thrill present
  5. Asymptomatic

References and Further Reading

Source of heart murmur sounds: University of Michigan Murmur library
Previous Topic
Back to Lesson
Next Topic
Cardiology Cardiovascular Examination Heart Murmurs at a Glance

1 Comment

  1. Nandini Singh
    Nandini Singh on 7 May, 2023 at 8:55 pm

    Amazing to learn thank you so much for such help full content

    Reply

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Contribute ✍

As a completely free educational platform, we rely on contributers like you to create valuable content that others can learn from. Please get in touch if you are able to contribute in any way e.g. articles, quiz questions.

*NEW* Medical Quiz Question Bank

Check your knowledge using our bank of (absolutely free) MCQ questions.

Other courses

Let's Learn Together!

All our lessons, courses and quizzes are free to access and use for everybody. Always.

Join Clinician Revision to get personalised see your progress and review your medical question bank attempts.

Can you contribute to a topic, lesson or quiz?

As a learning resource made by and for the medical community, we rely on the valuable contribution of users in writing new articles.

I'd like to contribute