[Two dimensional echocardiographic diagnosis of mitral valve prolapse syndrome in presumably healthy young students].

We studied the prevalence of mitral valve prolapse (MVP) in presumably healthy young students using two-dimensional echocardiography and compared their clinical pictures with those of hospital patients with MVP. In 265 students undergoing routine physical examination (228 males and 37 females, aged from 18 to 25 years), 29 (11%) were diagnosed as having MVP. There was no sex difference (11% for males and 8% for females). Anterior leaflet prolapse was seen in 26 cases, and anterior and posterior leaflets prolapse was in 3 cases. Twenty-four of the 29 MVP students revealed neither midsystolic click, late systolic murmur nor holosystolic murmur on phonocardiograms (PCG). These 24 students had no cardiac symptoms and the incidence of electrocardiographic (ECG) abnormalities, such as arrhythmias and ST-T changes, was similar to that of students without MVP (4/24 vs 50/236). In contrast, of 54 patients (32 males and 22 females, aged from 15 to 25 years) who were diagnosed as having MVP in the hospital, 28 patients (52%) had no PCG abnormalities. The anterior leaflet was predominantly involved in 42 patients and both anterior and posterior leaflets in 12 patients. These 28 patients visited the hospital because of cardiac symptoms; dyspnea on exertion (3 patients), palpitation (2 patients) or atypical chest pain (7 patients), or abnormal physical examination (11 patients). ECG abnormalities were noticed in 15 of 28 patients (54%). The prevalence of cardiac symptoms and ECG abnormalities were similar to those in 26 patients with PCG evidence of MVP. It was concluded that the prevalence of MVP in young healthy students is 11% and the anterior leaflet is predominantly involved. Most cases were asymptomatic and had no PCG or ECG abnormalities. In contrast, age-matched MVP patients, diagnosed in the hospital with the same two-dimensional echocardiographic criteria, demonstrated similar predominancy of the anterior leaflet prolapse, but had more cardiac symptoms and ECG abnormalities, irrespective of the presence or absence of PCG findings.