[Proceedings: The echocardiogram in the differential diagnosis of mitral valve insufficiency]

54 patients with mitral incompetence of varying origin have been studied by echocardiography. Echocardiography was usually not helpful in the diagnosis of pure mitral incompetence of mixed mitral valve lesions. However, it proved to be a sensitive method for recognition of the typical anomaly in "mid systolic click/late systolic murmur syndrome", which is ballooning of one or both leaflets toward the left atrium (17 out of 22 patients). The echo was equally useful for documentation of an abnormal systolic motion of the anterior mitral leaflet toward the septum, which was found in 7 of the 11 studied cases of hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy.