New guidelines for the clinical diagnosis of mitral valve prolapse

Because the term mitral valve prolapse has pathologic connotations, considerable effort has been expended to establish acceptable diagnostic standards, but without general agreement. This report combines information from the history, physical examination, electrocardiogram, chest x-ray and 2-dimensional echocardiogram in an effort to avoid the artifice of using the 2-dimensional echocardiogram as a categoric reference standard and to establish new clinical guidelines that distinguish pathologic mitral valve prolapse--a primary connective tissue abnormality of leaflets, chordae tendineae and anulus--from normal superior systolic displacement of mitral leaflets. The objective is to avoid implications of heart disease in healthy young persons within the gaussian distribution of normal. To this end, and with the Jones criteria as a model, major and minor criteria are proposed for the clinical diagnosis of mitral valve prolapse as a pathologic entity.