[Musical murmurs: phonocardiographic, echocardiographic and Doppler echocardiographic study]

Musical murmurs are probably related to the vibrations of some structures in the cardiovascular system, and this may be reflected in the characteristic stripes which are recorded by the fast Fourier transformation (FFT) of the pulsed Doppler echocardiography (so-called FFT stripe). In the present study, we demonstrated new stripes by color Doppler echocardiography, which were composed of multiple warm and cold color bands which we termed color Doppler stripes (CD stripe). An experiment was performed to obtain Doppler signals from the surface of a vibrating tonometer at a frequency of 128 Hz. When the CD stripe was obtained, a similar FFT stripe was also recorded from the same sampling site. Fourteen patients with musical murmurs were selected from 2,000 consecutive phonocardiographic records made during the last one and a half years. The CD stripe was obtained in three and the FFT stripe in six. When both stripes were obtained, the FFT stripe was always obtained if we set carefully the sample site in the CD stripe, and these two were consistent in timing. We concluded that, in view of the close correlation between the CD stripe and the FFT stripe, the newly observed CD stripe is also a characteristic finding reflecting a regularly vibrating structure. The technical feasibility of color Doppler echocardiography to detect fine movements of structures may be helpful in the study of musical murmurs.