Right-to-left atrial shunt without pulmonary artery hypertension.

A 70-year-old woman without any history of pulmonary or cardiac disease developed breathlessness with severe arterial hypoxemia. Cardiac ultrasound examination and spirometry were normal. Cardiac catheterization and intravenous microbubble injection demonstrated an interatrial right-to-left shunt.

Holodiastolic reversal flow in the common carotid: another indicator of the severity of aortic regurgitation.

Aortic regurgitation (AR) causes an increased diastolic reverse flow at various levels of aorta and its branching vessels. A prospective study was designed to evaluate the feasibility and accuracy of duplex sonography of the common carotid artery (CCA) in patients with various degrees of AR quantified by cardiac angiography. Twenty-four patients, with pure angiographic AR, of mean age 63.

Eustachian valve mimicking a right atrial cystic tumor.

We report the case of a 65-year-old patient referred to our hospital for stroke. In the course of the diagnostic procedure, a transesophageal echocardiography was performed and showed at first sight a mass attached to the right aspect of the interatrial septum and mimicking a cystic tumor. But after performing multiple views, it was in fact demonstrated a large Eustachian valve with its extremity attached to the right aspect of the interatrial septum.