Pulmonary regurgitation

In most normal individuals, pulmonary regurgitant can be detected with color flow Doppler, and a well-defined signal of pulmonary regurgitation can be recorded using pulsed or continuous wave Doppler. In this pulsed wave study, the forward flow in the pulmonary artery during systole is laminar. The regurgitant diastolic flow has a relatively slow slope of decay (arrows). In severe pulmonary regurgitation, the diastolic decay can be very rapid and the systolic signal dense. Respiratory variation in the slope of the diastolic signal can be seen. The velocity of end diastolic flow signal can be used to calculate end diastolic pulmonary pressure by applying the Bernoulli equation and adding the right atrial pressure.