Below is the current list of 300 free paediatric cardiology thesis topics, covering congenital heart disease both acyanotic and cyanotic, echocardiographic and electrocardiographic reference work, rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease, cardiomyopathy and myocarditis, arrhythmias, syncope and childhood hypertension, heart failure and pulmonary hypertension, cardiac changes in systemic disease, and preventive cardiology, for MD and DNB candidates in Paediatrics. These also serve as paediatric cardiology research topics for board residents and postgraduate students outside India. Every title uses a cross-sectional, observational, comparative, diagnostic or analytical design that can be completed within a single thesis period using children already attending the cardiology clinic, the paediatric wards or the echocardiography list, together with investigations already performed for clinical reasons. Each topic generates a complete paediatrics protocol and paediatrics synopsis in editable format.
Last reviewed and updated: August 2026
📌 Updated for 2026–2027 MD and DNB Paediatrics admissions
This list of paediatric cardiology thesis topics is updated for the 2026–27 academic cycle. Topics are reviewed against recent dissertations, examiner preferences, feasibility in Indian district and tertiary paediatric units, and the reporting standards now expected in paediatric echocardiographic research.
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The topics above work as research questions anywhere — what changes is the document your institution expects. Two different routes, depending on which applies.
Board residents — SCFHS, Arab Board, OMSB, KIMS, QCHP, NHRA, DHA and DOH
Residency programmes across the Gulf carry a mandatory research requirement, and the equivalent of an Indian synopsis is the research proposal submitted to the IRB before a research project begins. The format differs from the Indian one: it additionally requires a Gantt chart, a budget and resources section, and a Declaration of Helsinki statement.
Generate a residency research proposal →PhD and Master's candidates — Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, the Gulf and beyond
University graduate programmes generally require a full research proposal of roughly 6,000 to 10,000 words, with an extended literature review, a theoretical framework and a detailed methodology chapter — considerably longer and deeper than a residency proposal. These are written individually, by a medical doctor, with no artificial intelligence generation and no plagiarism, and revised until the supervisor accepts them.
Enquire about a PhD research proposal →🔥 Trending research areas in paediatric cardiology for 2026–27
Based on recent dissertations, examiner preferences and current practice in paediatric units across India, these are the emerging high-interest areas:
A paediatric cardiology protocol is judged on internal consistency: the research question, objectives, methodology and statistical plan must all describe the same study. The primary objective should be a single measurable endpoint — one prevalence, one comparison, one association, one diagnostic estimate — with everything else demoted to secondary objectives. Beyond that, almost every topic on this page rests on a measurement made on a growing child, and the protocol has to say how that measurement was made comparable.
Nothing measured in millimetres means anything until it is related to body size. Left ventricular dimensions, right ventricular dimensions, aortic root, pulmonary artery, left atrium, tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion, left ventricular mass and inferior vena cava diameter all scale with growth, so a raw value from a four-year-old and a fourteen-year-old cannot sit in the same column. State that measurements are converted to Z-scores or indexed to body surface area, name the body surface area formula — Haycock, Mosteller and DuBois disagree in small children and the Z-score moves with the choice — and name the nomogram or reference dataset with its citation. Where an Indian reference does not exist for the parameter, say that a Western nomogram is being applied and that this is a limitation, which is exactly the gap the reference-value topics on this page are designed to fill.
Pulmonary artery pressure is estimated, not measured, and sometimes cannot be obtained at all. The echocardiographic figure comes from the peak tricuspid regurgitation velocity with an assumed or estimated right atrial pressure, so the protocol must state the method, state the right atrial pressure assumption, and state what was done for the child with no measurable regurgitant jet — who must be reported as unobtainable rather than quietly dropped. Two further cautions matter for the shunt topics. In an unrestrictive ventricular septal defect or a large ductus, the right ventricular systolic pressure reflects systemic pressure transmitted through the defect and is not by itself evidence of pulmonary vascular disease. And a definitive diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension is a catheterisation diagnosis, so objectives and conclusions should read as echocardiographically estimated pulmonary artery pressure rather than as pulmonary hypertension diagnosed.
Blood pressure needs its own methods paragraph. State the device and its validation for paediatric use, the cuff bladder size selected against the child's arm circumference, the arm used, the posture, the rest period before measurement, and the number of readings averaged. State the reference table used to classify the reading, with the age, sex and height percentile lookup, since Indian and international tables give different classifications for the same child. And be honest about what a single visit can establish: hypertension in children is defined on readings from three separate occasions, so a one-visit cross-sectional study reports elevated blood pressure or hypertensive-range readings, not hypertension. The white-coat topic exists precisely because that distinction is real.
Name the criteria edition for rheumatic work. State which revision of the Jones criteria is used, apply the moderate-to-high-risk population provisions that apply in India, and where echocardiographic screening is involved, use the World Heart Federation definite and borderline definitions with their morphological and Doppler requirements. Without them, physiological regurgitation gets counted as rheumatic disease and the prevalence is meaningless. Record whether the diagnosis was clinical, subclinical or both, since the clinical-versus-subclinical carditis topics turn on that single field.
Record the conditions of the study, not just the result. Heart rate belongs in every dataset here, because diastolic indices, ejection fraction and corrected QT all move with it, and Bazett's formula overcorrects in a tachycardic child. State whether the child was sedated, crying, febrile or anaemic at the time. For every echocardiographic parameter, state the view, where in the cardiac cycle the measurement was taken, whether M-mode or two-dimensional measurement was used, and the machine and probe. Name who performed and reported the studies, their level of training, and whether the reporter knew the clinical diagnosis — and for any concordance or diagnostic accuracy topic, state that the reading was independent and blinded. Report intra-observer and inter-observer agreement on a defined subset; in echocardiographic dissertations that subset is the difference between a believable paper and an unpublishable one.
A paediatrics synopsis is the condensed document of two to four pages — title, introduction, aim and objectives, brief methodology, sample size and references — submitted for registration of the dissertation topic. The paediatrics protocol is the expanded version of twelve to twenty pages carrying the full review of literature, detailed methodology including measurement definitions and imaging technique, the statistical plan, the study timeline and the annexures.
Four annexures carry particular weight on this subject. The measurement definition annexure should list every echocardiographic and electrocardiographic parameter with the view or lead, the point in the cardiac cycle, the measurement convention and the units — this is what an examiner checks when reported values differ from published series. The reference and Z-score annexure reproduces the nomogram source, the body surface area formula and the cut-offs applied, including the paediatric electrocardiographic criteria used for ventricular hypertrophy, which are age-specific and not the adult voltage rules. The instrument annexure carries any quality-of-life, adherence or caregiver burden questionnaire with its scoring key and licence correspondence. And the consent set requires a parent or guardian information sheet and consent form in the local language plus a separate age-appropriate assent form.
Two paediatric specifics that examiners look for. Where healthy children are recruited — the reference-value topics, the school-based studies and every comparison group — the protocol must define what healthy means, how it was verified, and what happens when the scan finds a lesion, because in a series of apparently normal children it will. And the protocol must state the sedation position explicitly: whether any child is sedated for the study, and if the unit's practice is to sedate infants for echocardiography, that no child is sedated for research purposes alone.
In practice the synopsis is extracted from the protocol rather than written separately, which is faster and produces a more coherent document. Check the university's prescribed proforma before submission, since rejections on formatting grounds are common and entirely avoidable.
Match the formula to the design. Prevalence topics — congenital heart disease among syndromic children, pulmonary hypertension in shunt lesions, left ventricular hypertrophy in hypertension, elevated blood pressure in school children — use a single proportion formula with an expected prevalence from a cited comparable study and a stated precision. Comparative topics need a two-mean or two-proportion calculation with both expected values referenced. Diagnostic topics are sized on expected sensitivity and specificity, with the number required being the number of children with the target condition, from which the total follows using the expected prevalence in the referred population. Name the citation that supplied the input.
Reference-value studies need far more children than a comparison study, and this is the commonest sizing error on this page. Estimating a mean precisely is easy; estimating a 95th or 5th centile precisely is not, and a nomogram is a statement about the tails. A reference series must also be stratified, because the values change with age and body size, so the sample size applies to each age band rather than to the whole series — sixty children spread across infancy to adolescence produce no usable reference at any age. State the age bands in advance, state the target number per band, and define the healthy population by explicit criteria rather than by absence of complaint.
Correlating a cardiac dimension with age, height, weight or body surface area is guaranteed to succeed and proves nothing. Several topics in the imaging section are worded as associations of that kind, and a Pearson coefficient of 0.8 between left ventricular dimension and body surface area is a restatement of growth, not a finding. Handle them as they are meant to be handled: fit a regression, preferably allometric, report the equation with its coefficient of determination and standard error of estimate, and present predicted values with prediction intervals across the range of body size. That produces a usable nomogram, which is publishable; a correlation coefficient is not.
Indexing to body surface area breaks in exactly the children several topics here study. Dividing a small heart by a small body returns a value that can look normal or high, so a wasted child with genuinely reduced cardiac dimensions may index into the reference range. This is a large part of why published studies of cardiac function in severe acute malnutrition disagree with one another, and it affects the malnutrition, chronic anaemia, cyanotic growth-failure and heart-failure comparisons on this list. Where the comparison group differs systematically in body size from the study group, state the indexing method in the objective, report raw values alongside indexed values, and consider indexing to height rather than body surface area since height is less disturbed by acute weight loss. A conclusion that reverses depending on the denominator must be presented with both denominators.
Distinguish the agreement studies from the accuracy studies, because both appear on this page and they need different analyses. The electrocardiographic versus echocardiographic hypertrophy topics are paired comparisons of two tests on the same child using age-specific paediatric criteria: report agreement as Cohen's kappa alongside sensitivity and specificity, and state which paediatric voltage criteria were applied, since adult rules misclassify children routinely. The clinical examination and chest radiography topics, by contrast, are true diagnostic accuracy studies, because echocardiography is a genuine reference standard for structural disease — report sensitivity, specificity, predictive values and likelihood ratios with confidence intervals, and note that the predictive values belong to the referral population studied. Where two methods measure the same continuous quantity, such as cardiothoracic ratio against echocardiographic dimensions, use Bland-Altman analysis with limits of agreement rather than correlation alone.
Referral filtering runs through the whole page. A spectrum of congenital heart disease compiled from an echocardiography list describes children who were referred for echocardiography, which is determined by who noticed a murmur, who could afford the journey and which lesions survive to reach a tertiary centre. Duct-dependent and severely cyanotic lesions are systematically under-represented in a series drawn from an out-patient clinic, and that is worth stating rather than concluding that the lesion is rare locally. Word prevalence objectives as prevalence among children attending, and keep school-based and hospital-based recruitment analytically separate.
Name the tests. Continuous variables are summarised as mean with standard deviation where normally distributed and median with interquartile range otherwise, with normality formally tested; gradients, ejection fraction and pressure estimates are frequently skewed. Two independent groups use the t-test or Mann-Whitney U test, three or more groups analysis of variance or the Kruskal-Wallis test with a stated post-hoc correction. Proportions use the chi-squared test with Fisher's exact test for sparse cells. Where a study reports twenty echocardiographic parameters across two groups, nominate the primary endpoint in advance and treat the remainder as exploratory or apply a stated correction, because at that width some comparison will reach significance by chance alone.
Start from the echocardiography list. Count how many paediatric studies the unit performs in a year, who performs them, and whether a resident may be present and record measurements. That single fact decides most of this page, because a topic requiring a hundred echocardiograms is straightforward where a paediatric cardiologist runs a weekly list and impossible where children are sent to an adult cardiology department that reports in a sentence.
Then match the topic to what the unit actually sees. Ventricular septal defect, atrial septal defect, patent ductus arteriosus and rheumatic heart disease accumulate in any general paediatric service; transposition, tricuspid atresia and total anomalous pulmonary venous connection do not, and a profile study of a rare lesion in a unit without a cardiac surgical programme will not fill. Cardiac biomarkers, lipid profiles and vitamin D differ in availability and cost. Where a topic needs healthy children — the reference values and the school-based studies — confirm that school permission or a well-child source exists before registering, since that is the arrangement that most often fails after approval.
Descriptive clinical and echocardiographic profiles remain the most common and are readily accepted: a defined group of children with a stated lesion, described across clinical, echocardiographic, electrocardiographic and growth parameters. Prevalence studies of a complication within a lesion group, comparative studies between lesions or against healthy children, and analytical studies associating an echocardiographic measurement with a clinical variable are all established.
Two further categories publish particularly well. Reference-value studies in healthy children produce Indian normative data, which is genuinely scarce and citable for years afterwards, and they suit a unit with echocardiography access but few complex cases. Diagnostic accuracy and yield studies — clinical examination against echocardiography, electrocardiography in syncope, echocardiography in asymptomatic murmurs — are accepted and straightforward to write up. Questionnaire-based studies of quality of life, adherence to secondary prophylaxis and caregiver burden are equally acceptable and are often the most feasible option where imaging access is limited.
Bring three to five shortlisted titles rather than one, since guides frequently rule out a topic on grounds a new resident cannot see — a senior resident already attached to the cardiology list, a departmental project on the same register, a machine due for replacement.
Settle six things in that meeting: how many children with the required lesion attend annually and how the count was made; who will perform the echocardiograms, whether their reporting is standardised, and whether they will measure the additional parameters the study needs; which nomogram and body surface area formula the department expects; who will act as second observer for the reliability subset and, where the design requires it, whether blinded independent reporting is possible; whether healthy children or school access are needed and who obtains permission; and which journal the eventual paper is aimed at. Where the topic needs biochemistry, nephrology, endocrinology or a cardiac surgical service, secure that cooperation formally rather than on an informal understanding.
Not definitively, and the wording of the objective should reflect that. Echocardiography estimates pulmonary artery systolic pressure from the peak tricuspid regurgitation velocity plus an assumed right atrial pressure; the formal diagnosis rests on mean pulmonary artery pressure measured at catheterisation, which very few thesis populations will have undergone. Word objectives and conclusions as echocardiographically estimated pulmonary artery pressure, and state the assumption used for right atrial pressure.
Three practical points for the twenty or so topics on this page that involve pulmonary artery pressure. Some children yield no measurable jet. Adequate tricuspid regurgitation is absent in a proportion of children, and those children must be reported as unobtainable with a number, not silently excluded, because dropping them biases the series toward higher pressures. A high right ventricular pressure in a large shunt is not automatically pulmonary vascular disease. In an unrestrictive ventricular septal defect or a large ductus, systemic pressure is transmitted to the right ventricle, so the estimate reflects the defect rather than the pulmonary vasculature; state the defect size and restriction status alongside every estimate. Use supporting evidence rather than a single number. Right ventricular size and function, septal configuration, pulmonary acceleration time and right atrial size all belong in the dataset, and a study that reports them reads as competent where one reporting a single derived figure does not.
The synopsis is the condensed two to four page document submitted for topic registration. The protocol is the full document of twelve to twenty pages containing the detailed review of literature, methodology with measurement definitions and imaging technique, the nomogram and reference cut-offs applied, the statistical plan, the timeline and the annexures including the consent and assent set. The synopsis is normally extracted from the completed protocol.
Institutional ethics committee approval before any data collection, under the national ethical guidelines for biomedical research involving human participants and the specific provisions governing research in children. Where school children are studied, written permission from the school authority or education department is required in addition, and committees ask to see it.
Consent and assent. Written informed consent from a parent or legal guardian in the local language, and written assent from the child from about seven years of age. State that participation is voluntary and that refusal does not affect the child's cardiac care or surgical listing — a reassurance that matters to a family waiting for an operation.
Healthy children carry the heaviest justification. A child recruited for a reference-value study gains nothing clinically, so the protocol must justify the burden, keep it minimal, and state plainly that no child is sedated for research and that no additional investigation involving radiation or contrast is performed. Where a scan requires the infant to be settled, state that only children already sedated for clinical indications are included, or that the study is confined to age groups who tolerate it awake.
Incidental findings are certain here, not hypothetical. Screening apparently healthy children with echocardiography and electrocardiography will detect septal defects, bicuspid valves, borderline rheumatic changes, prolonged corrected QT intervals and occasionally something serious. The protocol must state in advance who informs the family, how, and the named referral pathway, including what is done with a borderline finding that may cause anxiety without requiring treatment. The same applies to school blood pressure studies, where a child with hypertensive-range readings needs a route to repeat measurement and assessment rather than a line in a results table.
Confidentiality and images. Echocardiographic and radiographic images carry patient identifiers, which must be removed before storage or publication, with a study code replacing the hospital number and the linking key held separately. Photographs of a child with clubbing, cyanosis or a syndromic appearance require separate written consent, and identifiable facial images should be avoided. For adolescents completing quality-of-life or psychosocial questionnaires, state who else sees the responses.
Clearance commonly takes six to ten weeks and retrospective approval is not granted.
As Z-scores wherever a published nomogram exists, indexed to body surface area where it does not, and raw only alongside one of the other two — and this decision has to be made before data collection, because it determines what the proforma records. The reason is that every dimension on this page grows with the child, so a raw millimetre value is uninterpretable without knowing the child's size, and a study reporting mean left ventricular dimensions across an age range from infancy to adolescence has produced a number that describes nobody in the series. Three things must be stated explicitly in the methodology. The body surface area formula. Haycock, Mosteller and DuBois give measurably different values in small children, and since body surface area sits in the denominator, the indexed result and the Z-score both move with the formula chosen. Name it and use it consistently. The nomogram and its population. Most paediatric Z-score datasets in wide use derive from Western populations, and Indian children differ in body proportions, so a child may be classed as dilated or hypertrophic partly because of the reference. Name the source, and where none fits, say so in the limitations — that gap is precisely what the reference-value topics on this page exist to fill. What indexing does in a small or wasted child. This is the trap, and it affects the severe acute malnutrition, chronic anaemia, cyanotic growth-failure and heart-failure comparisons directly. Dividing a small heart by a small body surface area returns a value that can look normal or even elevated, so a child with genuinely reduced chamber dimensions indexes into the normal range and the study concludes that cardiac size is preserved. Much of the published disagreement about cardiac function in undernutrition comes from exactly this. Where the two groups differ systematically in body size — which is the whole point of those comparisons — report raw values and indexed values side by side, consider indexing to height rather than body surface area since height is less disturbed by acute weight loss, and state in the discussion which denominator the conclusion depends on. A finding that survives both denominators is worth reporting; a finding that reverses between them is a finding about arithmetic, and saying so honestly is what distinguishes a thesis that gets published from one that gets questioned.
Substantially. A PhD proposal typically runs 6,000 to 10,000 words and carries an extended critical literature review, a theoretical framework, a detailed methodology chapter and a discussion of expected contribution to the field. An MD synopsis is a two to four page registration document. The research question can be the same; the depth expected is not.
Most universities require registration within six to nine months of joining. Shortlist in the first two months, finalise with the guide by the third, and file for ethics clearance immediately afterwards. Recruitment here depends on someone else's list, which residents consistently underestimate: echocardiography slots are limited, the cardiologist may visit weekly, and a study needing additional measurements on each scan adds time to a list that is already full. Where school or community access is required, start that permission alongside the ethics submission. Close the data collection window at least six months before submission.
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