L'echocardiographie du coeur droit--cette inconnue! Apport de l'echocardiographie et de l'echo-Doppler a l'examen du coeur droit. [Echocardiography of the right heart--unknown territory. Contribution of echocardiography and Doppler echocardiography to the study of the right heart]

The aim of this study involving 700 echocardiographic examinations (echoes) was to evaluate the diagnostic impact of the method for right heart abnormalities. Among 200 two-dimensional echoes of a first series we found 23 abnormalities (11.5%): nine congenital malformations, seven pulmonary hypertensions, four cases of isolated right ventricular dilatation, two tricuspid regurgitations (TR), one right atrial myxoma. In four cases the abnormality was clinically unexpected. In a second series of 500 patients, consecutively subjected to a two-dimensional echo with pulsed-wave and continuous-wave Doppler, we found 119 regurgitations of right heart valves in 98 patients (20%): 35 TR and 24 pulmonary regurgitations (PR) secondary to pulmonary hypertension, 13 TR secondary to tricuspid valve prolapse, 16 TR and 11 PR as a part of polyvalvular disease; 10 TR and 10 PR were isolated observations. The examination technique and the echo signs of the principal abnormalities of the right heart are reviewed. In summary, we emphasize that right heart abnormalities are surprisingly frequent in routine echo investigations; therefore, complete study of all the right heart structures in every echo examination is mandatory