[Value of 2-dimensional echocardiography in symptomatic heart diseases in the newborn infant and in early infancy].

From January 1980 to March 1983, 73 distressed newborns and young infants, in whom congenital cardiac defects were suspected, were investigated by two-dimensional echocardiography. The diagnosis in these infants could be re-established later by cardiac catheterization and cineangiocardiography, operation or autopsy. Correct diagnoses were set in 97% of the patients (71 out of 73). Specific echocardiographic criteria for the diagnosis of the individual defects are discussed.