Quantitative assessment of the hemodynamic consequences of aortic regurgitation by means of continuous wave Doppler recordings.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the ability of continuous wave Doppler ultrasound recordings to reflect the magnitude and hemodynamic effects of aortic regurgitation. Forty-five patients with angiographically proved aortic regurgitation had Doppler studies performed within 24 hours of cardiac catheterization. High quality spectral recordings of the regurgitant jet were obtained in 31 patients, whereas 14 patients exhibited dropout of high velocity signals precluding measurement of maximal velocities. The slope of the peak to end-diastolic velocity decrease measured by Doppler examination was compared with the decay in the aortic to left ventricular diastolic pressure gradient by catheterization and was found to correlate well (r = 0.86). The Doppler velocity decay slope was generally higher in patients with angiographically severe rather than mild or moderate aortic regurgitation, but considerable overlap was present among groups. However, a diastolic velocity decay slope of greater than 3 m/s2 was seen only in those patients with advanced (3 or 4+) aortic regurgitation. Left ventricular end-diastolic pressure was estimated from the Doppler recordings by subtracting the end-diastolic pressure gradient obtained by the modified Bernoulli equation from the cuff diastolic blood pressure. A correlation was observed (r = 0.84) between Doppler and catheterization left ventricular end-diastolic pressure in the 31 patients with high quality spectral data, although the SEE was substantial (5.5 mm Hg). These data demonstrate that continuous wave Doppler recordings of the regurgitant jet can be useful in assessing the angiographic severity and hemodynamics of aortic regurgitation.