Eccentric aortic regurgitation in patients with right coronary cusp prolapse complicating a ventricular septal defect.

To analyze the clinical significance of eccentric aortic regurgitation (AR) complicating the right coronary cusp prolapse associated with a ventricular septal defect (VSD), the Doppler echocardiograms of 129 patients were reviewed. In 102 patients, AR was classified as mild and in 27 patients it was classified as moderate. Eccentric AR was defined as the jet distributing in an eccentric direction. In 15 patients of the moderate group, AR was already moderate at the initial examination and of these, the AR was eccentric in 14 and central in 1. In 12 patients who initially had mild AR, it became moderate during follow-up. In 7 patients with mild, central AR, 6 worsened to central moderate AR and 1 evolved to eccentric moderate AR. Eccentric mild AR patients all developed eccentric moderate AR. Within the mild AR group, 5 of 9 patients with eccentric AR progressed from mild to moderate, whereas only 7 of 105 patients with central AR did so (p<0.01). In conclusion, eccentric AR may be an advanced finding of the AR associated with right coronary cusp prolapse in some patients, but in others eccentric AR is highly likely to progress and is malignant.