Duplex pulsed Doppler echocardiography in mitral regurgitation

The accuracy of duplex pulsed Doppler echocardiography (d‐PDE) for detecting mitral regurgitation was evaluated in 35 patients undergoing d‐PDE, cardiac auscultation, and left ventriculography. With three transducer positions, the overall d‐PDE sensitivity was 95%, specificity was 100%, positive predictive value was 100%, negative predictive value was 94%, and diagnostic accuracy was 97% compared with ventriculography. This technique was superior to auscultation (sensitivity 74%, specificity 94%, positive predictive value 93%, negative predictive value 75%, diagnostic accuracy 83%). No false‐positive d‐PDE results occurred, but discordant false‐negative results occurred frequently among the three transducer positions. If discordant negative results are considered to be false negatives, then d‐PDE is both sensitive and specific when mitral regurgitation is defined as systolic spectral broadening in any one transducer position.