Abnormal diastolic motion of interventricular septum during inspiratory phase. Echocardiographic study.

We report on a patient without heart disease who had pulsus paradoxus, associated with echocardiographic evidence of abnormal and exaggerated diastolic motion of interventricular septum. Both phenomena appeared at the peak of the inspiratory phase of respiration, and seemed to be produced from the same haemodynamic variations, of which the echocardiographic pattern appears to be a more sensitive index than the sphygmographic one.