Patent Ductus Arteriosus Simulating Aortic-Valve Regurgitation

WE have recently seen 4 women with patent ductus arteriosus who had been treated for many years for aortic regurgitation because of enlargement of the left ventricle, a diastolic murmur along the left of the sternum and a wide pulse pressure.The patients were thirty-three, forty-four, fifty-five and seventy-one years old. Three of them had previously been hospitalized with episodes of severe dyspnea. They were maintained on a permanent regimen of digitalis and diuretics. The remaining patient, fifty-five years of age, had limited her physical activities since childhood but had not been severely ill. The chief complaint of the seventy-one-year-old . . .