Cardiology help, puhLEEZE!

[Guest guest]

I have a sinking feeling that I'm the only one working this morning, but

if there ARE any other poor, put-upon souls like myself, I could sure

use some help.

I've got two " sounds like " possibilties for the word I'm missing below.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that " rating " doesn't make sense in the

context, and I'm also pretty suspicious of " gradient. " I'm pretty sure

there's a " long 'A' followed by either a 'T' or a 'D' " contained in what

he's mumbling, but that's about as descriptive as I can be.

The echocardiogram showed a left ventricle that measured 55.6 mm in

diastole with an ejection fraction of 55% and normal measurements across

the mitral valve, with an estimated mitral valve ____________ [s/l

rating or gradient] of 3.25 sq cm.

Any help tremendously appreciated.

Jayni

[Guest guest]

My radiologist always used gradient here. The mm Hg (mm of mercury)

would be correct for the 3.2 cm sq. They are measuring the force or

pressure of the blood travelling through the particular valve, thus the

force would make 3.2 mm of mercury displace. This is similar to the

barometric reading in weather when they say the mercury is rising when

the weather is nice without much " pressure " in the atmosphere and when

the barometer (mercury) pressure is falling when bad weather or rain,

storms, etc. are putting " pressure " on the earth.

Hopefully makes sense...some days I can be clear as mud.

On Sun, 28 May 2000 09:20:31 -0500 Jayni writes:

> I have a sinking feeling that I'm the only one working this morning,

> but

> if there ARE any other poor, put-upon souls like myself, I could

> sure

> use some help.

>

> I've got two " sounds like " possibilties for the word I'm missing

> below.

> Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that " rating " doesn't make sense in

> the

> context, and I'm also pretty suspicious of " gradient. " I'm pretty

> sure

> there's a " long 'A' followed by either a 'T' or a 'D' " contained in

> what

> he's mumbling, but that's about as descriptive as I can be.

>

> The echocardiogram showed a left ventricle that measured 55.6 mm in

> diastole with an ejection fraction of 55% and normal measurements

> across

> the mitral valve, with an estimated mitral valve ____________ [s/l

> rating or gradient] of 3.25 sq cm.

>

> Any help tremendously appreciated.

>

> Jayni

>

>

>

------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Find long lost high school friends:

> http://click./1/4056/1/_/9092/_/959523278/

>

------------------------------------------------------------------------

>

> NMTC Web Page - http://go.to/nmtc

>

________________________________________________________________

YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET!

Juno now offers FREE Internet Access!

Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit:

http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.

[Guest guest]

Hi, Diane, , and Chuck:

Thanks for your help. I think you confirmed what I was afraid of -- I'm

going to have to flag it. I had done a Google search for mitral valve

gradient to see if the " square centimeters " would work with it, and saw

that mmHg was (were?) the unit of measure attached to every reference to

mitral valve gradient I found. (Okay, I didn't take time to read ALL of

the journal papers that came up, but I did review a good half-dozen.)

I think either Diane's guess of " area " or Chuck's of " replacement " would

fit the context of the sentence. The problem is that I'm pretty sure

that he's not saying either one, and shame on him for it!

Thanks again for the suggestions.

Jayni

Diane Manning wrote:

> Jayni, I would guess this is referring to " area " because of the

> measurement in square centimeters. I believe gradient would refer to

> a pressure gradient, which would be measured in something like mmHg.

> Hope this helps some!