To the Editor: I read with interest the contribution by Cai et al in the “Images in Cardiovascular Medicine” section of the journal.1 They described a patient who developed severe aortic regurgitation and a mitral valve aneurysm 1 month after successful treatment of Streptococcus mitis endocarditis. The case presentation and the title implied that the mitral valve aneurysm was caused by the eff...

A study was performed in 13 patients with idiopathic mitral valve prolapse and in 21 control subjects to assess the effect of the cold pressor test on systolic motion of the mitral valve. A significant increase in blood pressure occurred in 10 patients with mitral valve prolapse and in 19 controls after immersion of one hand in ice-cold water. M-mode echocardiographic recordings from the mitral...

BACKGROUND Mitral valve repair is considered better than mitral valve replacement for degenerative mitral regurgitation. AIM To evaluate late clinical results of mitral valve repair as compared to mitral valve replacement in patients with degenerative mitral regurgitation. PATIENTS AND METHODS All patients subjected to open heart surgery for degenerative mitral regurgitation between 1990 an...

Three-dimensional echocardiography offers great promise for improving the understanding of the mitral valve anatomy, function, and pathology. It may have important implications for medical or surgical management of different mitral valve disease. In this article we provide an overview of the three-dimensional anatomy of the mitral valve. Based on the studies using three-dimensional echocardiogr...

Transcatheter aortic valve implantation, as well as interventional mitral valve repair, offer reasonable therapeutic options for high-risk surgical patients. We report a rare case of early post-interventional aortic valve prosthesis migration to the left ventricular outflow tract, with paravalvular leakage and causing severe mitral valve regurgitation. Initial successful interventional mitral v...

During the period 1970-81, 183 patients underwent mitral valve surgery for chordal rupture. Of these, 82 (45%) patients were treated by mitral valve repair and 101 (55%) by mitral valve replacement. Mean age at surgery was 57 years. The early mortality was nine of 183 (4.9%) patients, of whom five had undergone replacement and four repair. During the follow up period (mean 3.6 years, range 0.8-...

Prosthetic aortic valve and conduit dehiscence with periconduit cavity and ascending aortic aneurysm is an uncommon complication of aortic root surgery. It is usually recognizable at echocardiography due to an abnormal position of the prosthetic valve and conduit in relation to the native aortic annulus in conjunction with an abnormal echolucent periconduit space that fills with color flow. Mit...

The slope of the posterior left ventricular wall motion in diastole (LVDS) was determined by echocardiography in 25 normal subjects and 21 patients with mitral stenosis. Patients with mitral stenosis had reduced LVDS that was related to the degree of mitral stenosis determined by calculated mitral valve area (r = 0.92). The mitral valve area correlated more closely with the LVDS than with the l...

Echocardiographically recorded mitral valve motion was compared with phasic transmitral flow in 17 open chest dogs. The normal mitral valve opening started with the onset of mitral flow and reached its full excursion while flow was still accelerating. Complete valve opening occurred .044 sec (plus or minus .002 sem) before peak flow, during which time an average of 17.6 percent of total mitral ...

A quantitative assessment of mitral valve orifice area can be achieved in patients with pure mitral stenosis by cardiac catheterization. In the presence of mitral regurgitation, however, accurate measurement often is impossible because total diastolic flow through the mitral valve frequently is unknow. Using a recently developed real-time, two-dimensional echocardiography system, we are able to...