Left ventricular wall motion abnormalities in chronic mitral and aortic valvular disease.

Left ventricular wall motion was analyzed from the contrast ventriculograms of 42 patients with mitral and aortic valvular diseases by the computer-aided 100-chords centerline method. The results showed that ventricular wall motion was decreased in the anterobasal and mitral valve regions in patients with mitral aortic valvular diseases. In 15 patients, there were also other local ventricular wall motion abnormalities, which were located in the anteroapical and posterobasal regions. Almost all of the patients with ejection fraction(EF) less than 0.5 had diffuse or localized hypokinesis. Ventricular wall motion in patients who died from cardiac causes early after receiving valvular replacement was lower than that of survivors. Using Fisher's judgement method, a formula could be established to predict the early prognosis of patients with chronic valvular diseases after valve replacement.