Parachute deformity of the mitral valve.

Shone, Sellers, Anderson, Adams, Lillehei, and Edwards (1963) descri;bed a developmental deformity of the mitral valve characterized by insertion of the chordae tendineae into a single papillary muscle, producing a funnel-shaped valve which is to some degree stenotic. They employed the term 'parachute' first used by Edwards (1961), and noted an association with other leftsided cardiac deformities. We have discovered only 11 such cases published in English. We record the finding of such a parachute mitral valve in association with a bicuspid stenotic aortic valve. To avoid possible confusion the term 'parachute mitral valve' is used throughout this paper in the way originally used by Edwards, and not to describe a ballooned mitral valve cusp (Hudson, 1965).