The electrical impulses of atrium arise from the sinus node, subsequently pass through the right and left atrium, and finally arrive at the atrioventricular node. The P wave is the summation of the electrical current generated by depolarization due to its passage through the atrial conduction pathway. It provides many clinical clues that may be useful for diagnosis of atrial, ventricular, or valvular heart diseases. This review article briefly describes the clinical implications, mechanism of genesis, and normal and pathologic features of the P wave.
Atrioventricular Node ; Diagnosis ; Heart Atria ; Heart Valve Diseases ; Sinoatrial Node

Introducing some advantages of cardiac ultrasound (through chest wall and trans-esophagus) in diagnosis of mitral stenosis. In Vietnam, Some kinds of cardiac ultrasound were applied since 1973 including M-mode ultrasound, 2D ultrasound, Doppler, and color ultrasound. Internal treatment and surgical treatment (including in closed or opened cardiac surgery, percutaneous mitral balloon valvotomy) are very efficient
Mitral Valve Stenosis ; ultrasonography ; Heart Diseases ; diagnosis ; Therapeutics

Aortic regurgitation is a common valvular heart disease, usually the result of rheumatic fever, or syphilis, and rarely of congenital origin. It is frequently associated with other valvular heart disease, especially mitral valve disease. It can be diagnosed by the presence of pulse pressure widening, a Corrigan pulse, and an early decreascendo diastolic murmur at the left sternal border between the second and third intercostal spaces. After the clinical application of cineaortography in the diagnosis of valvular disease, Segal et al (1964) first reported rheumatic aortic regurgitation without an audible murmur in patients having mitral valve disease. The importance of discovering aortic reguritation in patients with predominent mitral disease has begun to be appreciated recently, especially as commisurotomies for the relief of mitral stenosis are performed more frequently. Nowadays eventhough the severity of aortic regurgitation is often not evident preoperatively, aortic regurgitation can become very evident when mitral stenosis is relieved. This study was comprised of seventeen patients with silent aortic regurgitation which was confirmed by cineaortography at Severance Hospital from January, 1970 to August, 1976. 1. Of the seventeen patients, 12 patients were associated with mitral stenosis, 4 with mitral steno-insufficiency, and 1 with mitral insufficiency. 2. Silent aortic regurgitation was suggested from the accompanying clinical features such as chest pain, apical heaving, and left ventficular hypertrophy pattern on both roentgenogram of the chest and electrocardiogram. 3. The severity of the aortic regurgitation was mild to moderate; 7 of the 17 patients being grade I, and 10 patients being grade II on cineaortogram.
Aortic Valve Insufficiency* ; Blood Pressure ; Chest Pain ; Diagnosis ; Electrocardiography ; Heart Murmurs ; Heart Valve Diseases ; Humans ; Hypertrophy ; Mitral Valve ; Mitral Valve Insufficiency ; Mitral Valve Stenosis ; Rheumatic Fever ; Syphilis ; Thorax

The spectral analysis of heart valve sound is a noninvasive diagnostic method known to be useful in evaluating the state of the heart valve function. This may provide early detection of valve calcification, thrombus or destruction, since previous studies have shown that the dominant frequency peak moved to a high frequency area when natural heart valve leaflets were calcified, stiffened or destroyed. However, it is important for a heart valve sound diagnostic system to find a proper spectral analysis method on phonocardiography. Until now, conventional frequency analyses such as the Fourier transform or autoregressive spectral estimation technique have been used to estimate spectral components of a phonocardiogram, but they are inappropriate because the signal frequency is assumed to remain constant during the transform interval. To overcome this problem, in this study, FOS (Fast Orthogonal Search) & MUSIC (MUltiple SIgnal Classification), which both appeared suitable for the analysis of biological data, were applied to prosthetic heart valve sound as the new heart valve sound spectral analysis methods. Five subjects with normally functioning mechanical heart valves and a patient with a malfunctioning one were selected to collect the heart valve sound signals. As a result, the second dominant peak frequency proved to be important along with the first dominant peak frequency in identifying the valve function. This study showed that the new heart valve sound spectral analysis method presented in this paper may be an effective method in heart valve sound analysis. Further study using this system in a large population of patients will aid in providing a diagnostic method in the early detection of valve failure.
Female ; Heart Sounds* ; Heart Valve Diseases/diagnosis* ; Heart Valve Prosthesis Implantation* ; Human ; Male ; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted*

Right-sided cardiac valvular diseases have traditionally been considered less important than disease of mitral or aortic valve. However, severe tricuspid regurgitation could lead to right ventricle dysfunction and reduce patients' survival rate. In clinic setting, tricuspid valve disease should be paid more attention for patients with secondary tricuspid regurgitation caused by left-sided valvular surgery combined with irreversible annular dilatation increasing the risk of reoperation. In this review, we summarize the epidemiology, anatomy, pathology, diagnosis, ultrasound and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging findings in patients with tricuspid regurgitation.
Echocardiography ; Heart ; Heart Valve Diseases ; diagnosis ; Heart Ventricles ; diagnostic imaging ; pathology ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging

In order to assess the sensitively and specificity of the pulsed Doppler echocardiography in the aortic regurgitation, 44 patients with valvular heart diseases were examined by pulsed Doppler echocardiography. Every patient was examined in sequence of clinical examination including the physical, M-mode & 2D echocardiographic examination, Doppler technique and then angiocardiography. The obtained results were; 1) Pulsed Doppler echocardiography was very useful in the diagnosis of the aortic regugitation(sensitivity:100%, specificity:90%). 2) Pulsed Doppler echocardiography was especially useful in the detection of the aortic regurgitation in patients who were not detected by physical and conventional echocardiographic examination.
Angiocardiography ; Aortic Valve Insufficiency* ; Diagnosis* ; Echocardiography ; Echocardiography, Doppler, Pulsed* ; Heart Valve Diseases ; Humans ; Sensitivity and Specificity

Child ; Chordae Tendineae ; injuries ; Female ; Heart Valve Diseases ; diagnosis ; surgery ; Humans ; Mitral Valve ; injuries

Renal Infarction is a rare disease and in 90% of patients with renal infarction, underlying cardiac disease is presented. Most often this includes valvular heart disease, cardiac arrhythmias, rheumatic heart disease with fibrillation, or subacute bacterial endocarditis. The correct clinical diagnosis and appropriate treatment of renal infarction are often delayed. Three cases of renal infarction were presented with review of literature.
Arrhythmias, Cardiac ; Diagnosis ; Endocarditis, Subacute Bacterial ; Heart Diseases ; Heart Valve Diseases ; Humans ; Infarction* ; Rare Diseases ; Rheumatic Heart Disease

PURPOSE: Congenital mitral stenosis(CMS) is a rare anomaly accounting for 0.4-0.5% of total heart disease. CMS which cases needed surgical correction in infancy are even rare. In this study, we analyzed 11CMS patients of less than 2 year of age who needed surgical corrections, in order to find out their diagnoses, the characteristics, the results of operation and prognoses, and the progress of disease without surgical correction. METHODS: Retrospective studies were performed on eleven CMS patients of less than 2 years of age admitted to Sejong General Hospital between Jan. 1989 and Aug. 1999. RESULTS: The surgeries were performed on 9 out of 11 enrolled patients. The median age was 8(3-20) months and the median weight was 5(4-9)kg. The mitral valves of the patients were classified anatomically as supramitral ring(4), parachute mitral valve(3), "typical" symmetric hypoplastic mitral valve(2) and asymmetric hypoplastic mitral valve(2). Three patients died after the surgical correction. Among them, fibroelastosis of left ventricle was found during the surgery in two cases, and the other case was considered to be in Eisenmenger state. 5. Reoperations were performed on 3 out of 6 surviving patients. While one case was an early reoperation, two case were late ones. CONCLUSION: The patients with severe CMS under the age of two can be surgically corrected with an acceptable success rate. Poor results were observed, however, if the decisions for surgical intervention were delayed.
Diagnosis ; Heart Diseases ; Heart Ventricles ; Hospitals, General ; Humans ; Mitral Valve ; Mitral Valve Stenosis* ; Prognosis ; Reoperation ; Retrospective Studies

Adult ; Female ; Heart Diseases ; diagnosis ; Humans ; Mitral Valve Stenosis ; diagnosis ; Postpartum Period ; Pregnancy ; Thrombosis ; diagnosis