[Prevalence of pulmonary valve insufficiency in healthy children: a Doppler color study].

One hundred patients, institutionalized for mental retardation, aged between 3 and 14 years (mean age 12.2 +/- 3) and free from cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases, were studied using Doppler technique (pulsed wave-continuous wave and color-coded Doppler), to evaluate the prevalence of pulmonary regurgitation. The authors, utilizing a triple method (diastolic turbulence above pulmonary valve detected by pulsed wave Doppler or diastolic flow detected by continuous wave Doppler, presence of regurgitant pulmonary color-jet, from short axis view, toward the right ventricular outflow tract, and presence of the same feature in the color m-multigate) to detect the presence or absence of pulmonary regurgitation found 73% positivity. There were no differences between the two sexes and the size of the pulmonary artery was in the normal range. The characteristics of regurgitation were: No holodiastolic. The regurgitant max velocity jet was not greater than 1.50 m/s. Beat to beat variability. Max length of color-jet was not more than 2 cm. Rapidly decreasing Doppler profile. We can conclude that pulmonary regurgitation is very frequent in children and is not significant if it has the above-named characteristics. This latter fact is further confirmed by other authors.