BACKGROUND The combination of fenfluramine and phentermine was a widely used obesity treatment before the withdrawal of fenfluramine for an association with heart valve regurgitation. The prevalence and clinical significance of regurgitation among patients treated with these medications has yet to be fully established. METHODS AND RESULTS To evaluate the potential association between the dura...

OBJECTIVE Despite progresses in surgical correction of Tetralogy of Fallot, pulmonary insufficiency and progressive dysfunction of the right ventricle impress its long-term prognosis. In this study we examined the correlations between QRS duration, pulmonary insufficiency and right ventricular performance index. METHODS We enrolled 57 repaired Tetralogy of Fallot patients. QRS duration on ele...

Although aortic regurgitation is a diastolic phenomenon, it has been observed during systole in a few cases. Our aims were to determine the incidence of systolic aortic regurgitation in routine clinical practice and to investigate the clinical profiles of patients with the condition. An exhaustive prospective study of all investigations performed by a hospital echocardiographic unit over one mo...

The results of left ventricular volume studies using biplane angiocardiography are described in 20 patients with mitral regurgitation and in 27 patients with aortic regurgitation. In both lesions, a regurgitant fraction of over 60 per cent was likely to be associated with severe symptoms and most patients in this group required operation. End-diastolic volumes were higher in patients with aorti...

Background The most common complication of Transcathether Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) is aortic regurgitation (AR). Typically, this regurgitation is in the mild range, yet in a smaller subset AR could be in the moderate-severe range. Significant regurgitation is usually due to paravalvular leak due to undersizing of the valve or malposition inferiorly into the left ventricular outflow tract...

Primary mitral regurgitation is generally an insidious disease with late onset of symptoms. Current European and American guidelines recommend surgery in severe primary mitral regurgitation when symptoms, overt left ventricular dysfunction, pulmonary hypertension or atrial fibrillation, occur. However, recent large studies reported an improved outcome in asymptomatic patients with severe mitral...

Objective: Valvotomy and the autograft procedure are the most common surgical treatment options for children with valvular aortic stenosis. We evaluated the results of these surgical procedures in our institution. Methods: Retrospective analysis was done of all patients presenting with aortic stenosis and operated upon before the age of 18. In 11 patients a valvotomy was performed and in 36 an ...

BACKGROUND The ability of transesophageal color Doppler echocardiography to provide high-resolution images of both cardiac structure and blood flow in real time is advantageous for many clinical purposes. This study was performed to determine the utility of the regurgitant jet width at its origin measured by transesophageal Doppler color flow imaging in the assessment of severity of mitral regu...

Abbreviations: AR aortic regurgitation, AS aortic stenosis, AVA aortic valve area, CSA cross sectional area, CWD continuous wave Doppler, D diameter, HOCM hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy, LV left ventricle, LVOT left ventricular outflow tract, MR mitral regurgitation, MS mitral stenosis, MVA mitral valve area, DP pressure gradient, RV right ventricle, RVOT right ventricular outflow trac...

As heart failure due to coronary and other nonvalvular heart disease becomes more prevalent in the urbanized world, functional mitral regurgitation will become a problem of increasing importance (1). Functional mitral regurgitation, which decreases effort tolerance and worsens prognosis in cardiomyopathy (2,3), is present in most patients referred for cardiac transplantation (4). It is therefor...