Recently it has been shown that in patients with transposition of the great arteries the isometric relaxation time of the left ventricle could be negative in the presence of normal pulmonary artery pressure. In order to find an explanation for this apparently paradoxical situation, it was decided to evaluate the importance of the delay of closure of the pulmonary valve in 15 patients with trans...

BACKGROUND Two-dimensional and Doppler echocardiography are standard methods to assess the severity of pulmonic insufficiency (PI). However, methods to define severity of PI - including the current published guidelines - remain qualitative and unvalidated. METHODS We reviewed all the electronic reports of echocardiographic studies performed at our institution since the publication of the 2003...

1021–41. [8] Devereux RB, Alonso DR, Lutas EM, Gottlieb GJ, Campo E, Sachs I et al. Echocardiographic assessment of left ventricular hypertrophy: comparison to necropsy findings. Am J Cardiol 1986;57:450–8. [9] Leyh RG, Schmidtke C, Sievers HH, Yacoub MH. Opening and closing characteristics of the aortic valve after different types of valve-preserving surgery. Circulation 1999;100:2153–60. [10]...

Pulmonary capillary blood flow was measured by the nitrous oxide-body plethysmograph technique in 21 patients with valvular heart disease or pulmonary thromboembolism during routine diagnostic cardiac catheterization. The studies were performed with a high-frequency phonocardiogram recorded from the pulmonary area to indicate the pulmonary valve opening at the beginning of right ventricular eje...

BACKGROUND Congenital pulmonary valve stenosis and patent ductus arteriosus are common congenital heart defects in dogs. However, concurrence of atypical pulmonary valve stenosis and patent ductus arteriosus is uncommon. This report describes the anatomic, histopathologic, and echocardiographic features in a dog with concomitant pulmonary valve stenosis and patent ductus arteriosus with atypica...

Aortic stenosis consists in a narrowing or incomplete opening of the aortic valve. This typically alters the blood flow, causing turbulent and/or complex flow jets. Such jets display peak velocities considerably higher than those of normal flow, and a much broader range of flow velocities. Another form of aortic valve disease is aortic insufficiency, or regurgitation. This condition occurs when...