Echocardiographic and phonocardiographic assessment of the St. Jude cardiac valve prosthesis

Forty-three consecutive patients with a St. Jude mitral, aortic, or combined prosthesis were studied by simultaneous phonocardiography and echocardiography. Twenty-eight patients had a mitral prosthesis, 20 an aortic prosthesis, and five had both. No opening click was recorded in any patient; however, a loud aortic or mitral closing click was recorded in all 43 patients. In patients with St. Jude mitral valve prosthesis, an echo-free space separated the two leaflets during diastole; seven of these also had a mid-diastolic closing and late diastolic reopening motion; two of the seven had an associated closing mid-diastolic click. A mid-diastolic rumble was recorded in six of 28 patients with St. Jude mitral valve prosthesis. In patients with a St. Jude aortic valve prosthesis, left atrium leaflet motion was recorded in 17 of 20 patients and was indistinguishable in appearance from echocardiograms obtained with various eccentric monocusp valves. In addition, we report one case of malfunction of a St. Jude mitral valve and one case of a paravalvular leak diagnosed by echophonocardiography. We concluded that the St. Jude cardiac prosthesis has variable normal phonocardiographic-echocardiographic patterns. Knowledge of these variable patterns is important in assessing patients with suspected malfunction of a St. Jude cardiac prosthesis.