[Study of diastolic regurgitation of the atrioventricular valves using Doppler echocardiography]. / Estudio mediante ecocardiografía Doppler de las regurgitaciones diastólicas de las válvulas auriculoventriculares.

In order to evaluate diastolic regurgitant flows in atrioventricular valves, we studied by Doppler echocardiography four patients in whom electric abnormalities like third degree atrioventricular block, pacemaker dysfunction and ventricular arrhythmias with atrioventricular dissociation were detected. In all of them, mitral and tricuspid high velocity regurgitant flows were found in systole. A second regurgitant atrioventricular flow was also registered, this flow being diastolic, intermittent, and with a lower velocity profile than the systolic regurgitation. The hemodynamic importance of this diastolic regurgitant flow over the cardiac output has not been well defined; in our cases the ventricular filling was not substantially modified by diastolic regurgitant flow.