An unusually accentuated diastolic anterior motion of the mitral valve in aortic insufficiency.

A 55-year-old woman was diagnosed with endocarditis involving the aortic valve and resulting in moderate aortic insufficiency. Transesophageal and transthoracic echocardiography demonstrated an unusually accentuated diastolic anterior motion of the anterior mitral valve leaflet toward the interventricular septum. The anterior leaflet remained within a few millimeters of the septum throughout diastole, with a narrow jet of aortic insufficiency separating the anterior leaflet from the septum. We hypothesize that the particularly long anterior mitral leaflet was drawn toward the septum during diastole due to the Venturi effect of the aortic insufficiency jet within a narrow ventricular outflow tract. This accentuated diastolic anterior motion may be a diastolic correlate of systolic anterior motion of the mitral valve.