HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Personal Folders Download to citation manager Permission Requests Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Eguaras, M. G. Articles by Concha, M. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Eguaras, M. G. Articles by Concha, M.

The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Vol 89, 573-579, Copyright © 1985 by The American Association for Thoracic Surgery and The Western Thoracic Surgical Association

ARTICLES

Intraoperative contrast two-dimensional echocardiography. Evaluation of the presence and severity of aortic and mitral regurgitation during cardiac operations

MG Eguaras, J Pasalodos, V Gonzalez, A Montero, MA Garcia, I Moriones, J Granados, F Valles and M Concha

We have used contrast two-dimensional echocardiography in the intraoperative evaluation of aortic and mitral regurgitation in 35 patients undergoing cardiac operations. All of them underwent previous cardiac catheterization in order to document the presence and severity of regurgitation. With the pericardium open, a catheter was introduced into the left ventricle (to document mitral regurgitation) or into the ascending aorta (to document aortic regurgitation). The two-dimensional echocardiographic probe was placed on the anterior surface of the right ventricle to obtain a basal image, equivalent to a conventional parasternal longitudinal view. Dextrose in water (5 ml) was rapidly hand-injected through the catheter, while echocardiograms were recorded on videotape. The observation of contrast medium (microbubbles) flowing in the retrograde direction through the incompetent valve was carefully evaluated with the same scoring system used in the hemodynamic laboratory. In 34 cases there was agreement between angiographic and echocardiographic evaluation of the presence and severity of mitral and aortic regurgitation. Only one case was evaluated as mild aortic regurgitation by angiography and moderate aortic regurgitation by echocardiography. There were no false positives or false negatives in the study. In view of the high degree of correlation between contrast two-dimensional echocardiography and hemodynamic data, we suggest that our method is an important tool for the cardiac surgeon. In addition, the present approach overcame the disadvantages of the conventional intraoperative methods, most of which are performed in a nonbeating or fibrillating heart.