[Relationship between vascular diameter and intracardiac pressure in tricuspid or pulmonary insufficiency detected by contrast echocardiography (author's transl)].

In order to evaluate the usefulness of contrast echocardiography in the diagnosis of tricuspid (TI) and pulmonary insufficiency (PI), 30 patients with various heart diseases and 7 controls were examined. The dimensions of the inferior vena cava and pulmonary artery were also measured on the two-dimensional echocardiogram. Cardiac catheterization was performed in 18 patients to study the relationship between the diameters of the vessels and the intracardiac pressures. The following results were obtained. 1) TI was detected without difficulty by contrast method using two-dimensional echocardiography on the four-chamber view. The diagnostic sensitivity was higher than that of conventional methods. 2) PI was also detected by the parasternal approach. The regurgitation of the contrast material across the pulmonary valve was easily confirmed because of pulmonary arterial dilatation. 3) In the cases with TI, the dimension of the inferior vena cava was larger than 20 mm. The right ventricular systolic pressure and the mean right atrial pressure were higher than 40 mmHg and 6 mmHg, respectively.