[Value of cine magnetic resonance imaging in the diagnosis and quantification of valvular regurgitation. Comparison with angiography and Doppler echocardiography].

Thirty-three patients presenting with regurgitation of the mitral valve (19 cases), tricuspid valve (14 cases) or aortic valve (11 cases) documented by angiography (n = 20) and/or doppler-echocardiography (n = 28) were examined by cine-MRI in order to test this method in valvular regurgitation. Sixteen ECG-synchronized cine-MRI images were acquired by the GRASS technique every 40 ms on appropriate projections, with a resistive 0.28 Tesla Bruker magnet. The semiology of normal and pathological blood flow images at cine-MRI is described. Valvular regurgitations present as "signal void" jets the chronology and spatial extension of which depend on the severity of the lesion. The differential diagnosis with physiological flows is discussed. The diagnostic sensitivity of the method was 29/29 when compared with angiography and 29/33 when compared with doppler-echocardiography (2 cases of 1/4 mitral regurgitation and 2 cases 1/4 tricuspid regurgitation were not visible at cine-MRI). The specificity of this method, as can be judged from 104 patients explored, also seems to be satisfactory. The severity of regurgitation was graded from 1 to 4 with the three methods, on the basis of strict criteria. The differences in grade evaluation exceeded +/- 1 point in only one case of mitral regurgitation which was greatly underestimated by the doppler method as compared with angiography and cine-MRI. Thus, cine-MRI is a reliable method to evaluate valvular regurgitations and their severity. It solves the practical problem raised by non-echogenic patients when catheterization is to be postponed or avoided.