Prevalence of mitral valvar prolapse in young athletes.

Background: The prevalence of mitral valvar prolapse has been reported to be between 0.6 and 21%. The goal of our study was to evaluate its prevalence in young athletes who underwent hand-held echocardiography as a screening mostly in southern California.

The prevalence of mitral valve prolapse in patients undergoing echocardiography for clinical reason.

Background: The prevalence of mitral valve prolapse (MVP) has been reported to be 2.4% according to the Framingham Heart Study. However larger trials have found the prevalence of MVP to be less than 1.

Mitral valvar prolapse is significantly associated with low body mass index in addition to mitral and tricuspid regurgitation.

Introduction: An association between mitral valvar prolapse and low body mass index has been proposed. The goal of this study was to evaluate this suggested association using two independent and large databases. For comparison, we evaluated the association, if any, between bicuspid aortic valve and low body mass index.

Echocardiographic prevalence of bicuspid aortic valve in the population.

Introduction: The exact prevalence of bicuspid aortic valve (BAV) is controversial. We studied the prevalence of BAV using two large independent echocardiographic databases.

Methods: We analyzed 24,265 echocardiograms performed at our academic institution between 1984 and 1998 for various clinical reasons and 1742 echocardiograms that were obtained by screening teenage athletes in Southern California.

Flattening of the interventricular septum (D-shaped left ventricle) in addition to high right ventricular tracer uptake and increased right ventricular volume found on gated SPECT studies strongly correlates with right ventricular overload.

Background: Flattening of the interventricular septum (D-shaped left ventricle) detected during echocardiographic examination is correlated with significant right ventricular (RV) overload. There are no reports of this finding with cardiac gated single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging. We report an observational study correlating this finding with the presence of RV overload.