Colour Doppler flow imaging in regurgitant valvular heart disease.

This brief discussion of colour Doppler flow imaging in regurgitant valvular lesions has focused on the emerging information about the sensitivity and specificity of this technique. This technique has been of unquestionable value to the echocardiographer in delineating regurgitant lesion. However, the clinician should be aware of the large number of factors that affect the colour Doppler flow image of the regurgitant jet, such as jet size, Doppler instrumentation and Doppler physics such as attenuation, angle, dependency, gain dependency as well as such artefacts or ghosting and reverberation. Characteristics of colour Doppler flow image of the regurgitant jet provide data that must still be considered semiquantitative because, in addition to the amount of the regurgitant volume, other factors affect the image such as the size and compliance of the receiving changer, the size of valve defect and differential pressure and velocity of regurgitant jet. Interpretation of the literature on sensitivity and specificity of this technique requires an understanding of these factors and awareness of the relatively few studies that have examined this question. Colour Doppler flow imaging has the potential, and should continue, to improve the noninvasive assessment of regurgitant valvular lesions.