[Two-dimensional echocardiographic diagnosis of mitral valve prolapse]

In recent years, echocardiography has become the standard method of diagnosing mitral valve prolapse. There is a few criteria of diagnosing mitral valve prolapse with two-dimensional echocardiography. In general, the definition of mitral valve prolapse with two-dimensional echocardiography is the motion of a bodily part of the anterior or posterior mitral leaflet superior to the annulus during systole. However, the patients with characteristic phonocardiographic findings of mitral valve prolapse were overlooked by the currently used criteria. I proposed, therefore, an essentially different two-dimensional echocardiographic criterion of diagnosing mitral valve prolapse. The criterion included the systolic dislocation of the anterior and posterior mitral leaflets at the coaptation zone in the parasternal long-axis view. This diagnostic criterion enabled us to obtain a systematic view of the mitral valve abnormality. Quantitation of mitral valve prolapse is necessary to evaluate the severity of the mitral regurgitation and the degree of mitral valve lesion. The grade of severity of mitral valve prolapse was assessed by measuring the distance of dislocation between the anterior and posterior leaflets at the area of coaptation. Analyzed data using this method showed that the degree and extent of mitral valve prolapse increased with age.