The echocardiographic diagnosis of "concealed" tricuspid stenosis.

A case is presented of a 42-yr old woman with rheumatic heart disease in whom cardiac catheterization revealed severe mitral stenosis and a low cardiac output, but no gradient across the tricuspid valve. Echocardiography clearly demonstrated the presence of tricuspid stenosis and the valve was found to be severely stenotic at surgery. This establishes the value of echocardiography in detecting tricuspid stenosis and suggests that, in some cases, it may be more sensitive than cardiac catherization in detecting this lesion.