[Problems in estimating the severity of aortic regurgitation by pulsed Doppler echocardiography: with special...

We categorized the findings of aortic regurgitation (AR) by aortography (AOG) into the following four types, and compared them with the corresponding findings obtained by pulsed Doppler echocardiography (PDE) in 30 patients, and assessed the ability of PDE to observe the distribution of an aortic regurgitant flow. Type 1: A wide regurgitant jet distributed within the entire left ventricle (5 cases). Type 2: A narrow regurgitant jet passing through the center of the left ventricular outflow tract (9 cases). Type 3: A regurgitant jet with the shift of its direction to the either side (10 cases). Type 4: A regurgitant jet which is localized below the aortic valve (6 cases). AOG findings in 40% of Type 1 cases, 78% of Type 2, 80% of Type 3 and 67% of Type 4 were well consistent with those of PDE (an average of 70%). Therefore, we could predict the distribution of AR by PDE, although a correlation between both methods was not complete. The reasons of the inconsistence of these two methods were discussed. PDE is an possible method for evaluating the severity of AR.