[Diagnosis of supravalvular aortic stenosis using 2-dimensional echocardiography].

In 13 children supravalvular aortic stenosis was diagnosed by two-dimensional echocardiography on the basis of a diminished inner diameter of the aorta in the supravalvular region "d2" compared with the inner diameter of the aortic annulus "d1". The differences in the values of "d2" and "d1" were only on the border of statistical significance. The difference in the d2/d1 ratio between the group of patients and healthy controls was statistically significant (p less than 0.001). Two-dimensional echocardiography is a very sensitive method for diagnosing supravalvular aortic stenosis. This sensitivity has been confirmed also by detecting the diminished inner diameter of the aorta in the supravalvular region in children with Williams-Beuren syndrome without clinical signs of a heart defect.