Differential diagnosis
Hypertrofic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM) may cause midsystolic murmur, but there will be no changes in the pulse rising as with Aortic Stenosis.

Innocent systolic murmurs should not be confused with Aortic Stenosis, as the sound is markedly different, usually producing soft, musical murmurs.

There are also a number of systolic murmurs that may seem easy to confuse with Aortic Stenosis. To learn to know one from the others, practice is important to learn the characteristics in pitch, timing, durance and how the various signs and symptoms relate to the murmurs. Patient history is of course an important clue to diagnosis.  Please review the chart “Graphic: Systolic murmurs, key characteristics” (To be inserted)