Echocardiographic patterns in infants and children with chronic renal failure.

Sixty-five echocardiograms were performed on 20 children with chronic renal failure and were compared with 101 normal controls. The main cardiac abnormalities were dilation of left ventricle and left atrium, left ventricular wall and septum hypertrophy, increase of cardiac output, and rarely decrease of contractility. Anemia, arteriovenous fistula, arterial hypertension and severe renal failure (patients treated by maintenance dialysis) were factors associated with these abnormalities. The authors emphasize the value of echocardiograms in the follow up of children with chronic renal failure.

[Myocobacterium tuberculosis endomyocarditis. Apropos of a case in a patient with a mitral valve prosthesis]. / Endomyocardite à Mycobacterium tuberculosis. A propos d'un cas chez un patient porteur d'une prothèse valvulaire mitrale.

A case of lethal cardiac tuberculosis with myocardial and endocardial involvement is reported in a 46 year old man with a Starr-Edwards mitral valve prosthesis inserted two years previously for severe mitral regurgitation, secondary to ruptured chordae of the posterior mitral leaflet. Apart from tuberculous pericarditis, cardiac involvement is extremely rare; it occurs in "tuberculous septicemia" whose characteristic features--tuberculinic anergy, hematological abnormalities especially pancytopenia,--lead to delay in diagnosis, which is usually fatal. The case presented is an example.

[Unidimensional echocardiogram of normal infants and children (author's transl)]. / L'échocardiogramme de l'enfant normal. Les paramètres de la fonction ventriculaire gauche.

One hundred and one echocardiograms were performed in children 8 days to 15 years old. The values measured were : end-diastolic and end-systolic left ventricular diameters, aortic root diameter, left atrial diameter, end-diastolic septal and posterior wall thickness, mitral valve excursion. There is a good correlation of these values with the square root surface area. The indices of left ventricular performance are : mean velocity of circumferential fiber shortening (correlated with heart rate), ejection fraction and shortening fraction. These indices are not correlated with body surface area. These data can be used in the echocardiographic investigation of infants or children with heart diseases.