[Two-dimensional echocardiographic measurement of the surgical aortic ring: its clinical significance in non-rheumatic regurgitation and in predicting the sizes of prosthetic valves].
The purpose of the present study was to determine the usefulness of two-dimensional echocardiographic measurements of the surgical aortic ring diameters (ARDs) in predicting correct sizes of the prosthetic valves and in determining the mechanisms of aortic regurgitation. Forty patients with aortic regurgitation who underwent prosthetic valve surgery, and 20 normal controls were selected for the study. The 40 patients consisted of 21 with rheumatic aortic regurgitation (RHD group), and 19 with non-rheumatic non-inflammatory aortic regurgitation (non-RHD group). Aortic regurgitation due to annuloaortic ectasia with or without the stigmata of Marfan's syndrome and bicuspid aortic valves were excluded from the non-RHD group. Echocardiographic estimates of the ARDs proved to be useful for predicting prosthetic valve sizes considering the good correlation between the echocardiographic and direct measurements (r = 0.814), despite a slight tendency to echocardiographic underestimation. The ARDs was 24.7 +/- 3 mm in the RHD group, 28.8 +/- 2.9 mm in the non-RHD group and 21.8 +/- 1.7 mm in the normal controls. The ARDs in the RHD group was significantly larger than that of the normal controls (p less than 0.001), and the ARDs of the non-RHD group was significantly larger than that of the RHD group (p less than 0.001). There were loose correlations between the ARDs and left ventricular end-diastolic dimension, and between the ARDs and left ventricular end-systolic dimension in the RHD group (r = 0.549 and r = 0.455, respectively), but there were no correlations between these two parameters in the non-RHD group. In four patients with aortic regurgitation in the non-RHD group, mitral regurgitation coexisted. Both the ARDs and the mitral ring dimension were markedly increased in these patients. It is concluded that in the non-RHD group, marked dilatation of the ARDs appears to be one of the cause of aortic regurgitation.
D000328:Adult; D001011:Aorta / Q000473:pathology*; D001022:Aortic Valve Insufficiency / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D004452:Echocardiography / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006350:Heart Valve Prosthesis; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012214:Rheumatic Heart Disease / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery