[Examination of cardiac function following long-term tocolysis with fenoterol and isoxsuprine in newborn (author's transl)].

We can sum up as follows: In special cases, tocolytics can lead to complications in the mother as well as in the foetus. These may be partly so severe that lead to patient's death, as some case histories show. In the majority of cases, however, there are only slight transient changes which are no longer manifest after a few weeks' time. Hence, it should be mandatory to initiate special cardiologic supervision of the children during the perinatal period if administration of tocolytics was unavoidable for the purpose of maintaining the state of pregnancy. It would be optimal if these patients, besides being examined clinically, would also be examined via echocardiogram, electrocardiogram and CK-MB determination. Since the echocardiographic examination, in particular, entails a great deal of expenditure of time and requires a relatively complicated instrumental set-up, we believe that recording the ecg and CK-MB should suffice, as practicable examination parameters in clinical routine, to detect this damage of the myocardium well in time.