[Doppler echocardiographic determination of the effective orifice area of mechanical heart valve prostheses in a flow model].

In a flow model the effective orifice areas (Ae) of 17 mechanical heart valve prostheses were determined. We measured the Ae-values of several sizes of three types of mechanical prostheses (Medtronic-Hall, St. Jude Medical, and Omnicarbon) under quasi-steady flow conditions using the continuity equation: Ae = flow/maximal transprosthetic velocity. The flow through the model could be determined exactly by directly measuring the decreasing fluid level within the feed tank, while the maximal velocities were calculated from CW-Doppler echocardiographic spectra. It was found that 1) over a range of 200-800 cm3/s Ae was constant for all prostheses and 2) in small aortic prostheses the Ae could be determined with only little scattering of the obtained values, while in large mitral prostheses there was a considerable variation within the results of repeated investigations. For example, in the 21- and 31-Omnicarbon-valves mean values of Ae were calculated as 1.41 and 4.03 cm2, respectively, with standard deviations of 0.05 and 0.49 cm2 as a result of about 70 single calculations in each valve. 3) The absolute values of Ae were smaller than those of comparable in vitro studies based on the Gorlin formula. We conclude that the effective orifice areas of prosthetic heart valves can be easily determined in a flow model by the combination of flow and Doppler echocardiographic measurements. As determinations are based on the same principle, the obtained values should clinically be referred to patients where the corresponding continuity equation for pulsatile flow is used as Ae = stroke volume/time integral of the maximal transvalvular velocity.