Three-dimensional Doppler for the assessment of mitral regurgitation

A new procedure for 3D reconstruction of color Doppler flow signals and for segmentation of regurgitant jets has been developed at our institution. We studied 55 patients with mitral regurgitation who underwent transesophageal echocardiography (TEE). A new parameter, the volume of regurgitant jets (JV), obtained by an automated procedure for segmenting the turbulent portions of the jets, has been compared to the jet area (JA), measured by conventional color Doppler. Mitral regurgitation was assessed by angiography; regurgitant volume (RV) was measured by pulsed Doppler. Jet areas did not show any correlation to angiography or to RV. Jet volumes showed significant correlations to RV(r=0.90; p<0.01) and were able to separate groups with different degrees of mitral regurgitation (p<0.01).