Angiocardiographic Observations of Intracardiac Flow in the Normal and in Mitral Stenosis

Intracardiac flow of intravenously injected radiopaque material was studied by means of rapid simultaneous biplane stereoscopic angiocardiography. Intracardiac circulation times thus determined may be found useful in recognizing structural abnormality and in detecting changes in cardiac function. In mitral stenosis, a distinctive, but not specific, pattern was recognized whether or not mitral valvotomy had been performed. No relationship was found between left atrial size and left atrial circulation time or between the degree of opacification of the left atrium and that of the left ventricle to differentiate "pure" mitral stenosis from mitral stenosis with regurgitation as diagnosed at the time of surgery or to predict the degree of mitral stenosis reported by the surgeon.