[Doppler echocardiography normal values in various types of mitral valve prostheses]

To determine the value of Doppler echocardiography for the normal clinical use in functional diagnostics of prosthetic mitral valves, and to determine normal values for different types of prosthetic valves, 136 patients with different types of prosthetic mitral valves with the same external diameter (29 mm) were examined. For pressure half-time (t1/2) there were higher values for Starr-Edwards (SE) (n = 18) and Lillehei-Kaster (LK) prostheses (n = 10) (113 +/- 29 and 125 +/- 29 ms) than for Saint Jude-Medical (SJM) (n = 56), Björk-Shiley (BS) (n = 40) and Ionescu-Shiley valves (IS) (n = 12) (78 +/- 16, 82 +/- 17 and 93 +/- 28 ms, p less than 0.001), as well as for the orifice and for the mean diastolic gradient (delta p). The upper permissible limits of t1/2 and delta p were 104 ms and 4.1 mm Hg for SJM, and 111 and 4.8 for BS valves respectively. Day-to-day variability (n = 30) was 5.0% (0.0-14.4%, if t1/2 greater than 100 ms: 0.0-6.0%), the correlation was r = 0.97. The duration of implantation did not have any influence on prosthetic mitral valve function. These normal values and limits form a basis for the evaluation of prosthetic mitral valves in the future.