An angiocardiographic sign of aortic regurgitation. Its utilization for the measurement of regurgitant flow.

FOLLOWING the recent advances in cardiovascular surgery, the quantitation of abnormal hemodynamics has assumed paramount importance to clinicians and surgeons alike, and has been a constant challenge to research workers. The quantitative estimation of the severity of aortic insufficiency, for example, is still an unsolved problem. The different dye-indicator studies'-" and the technic of venous occlusion plethysmography introduced by Mackay7 are examples of efforts to solve this problem. We wish to describe a technic of retrograde aortography done on five patients with aortie insufficiency and on five patients without this valvular defect. The aortograms demonstrate the movements of the opacified column of blood in the aorta, forward with ventricular systole and backward with diastole. While this phenomenon is a well-known hemodynamic assumption, it has not been demonstrated previously by contrast radiography. This paper deals with a description of the aortograms and their hemodynamic significance and with a presentation of a method for the estimation of the volume of regurgitant flow.