Mitral valve stenosis most cases, the diagnosis of mitral stenosis is most easily made by echocardiography, which shows left atrial enlargement, thick and calcified mitral valve with narrow and "fish-mouth"-shaped orifice and signs of right ventricular failure in advanced disease. It can also show decreased opening of the mitral valve leaflets, and increased blood flow velocity during diastole. The trans-mitral gradient as measured by Doppler echocardiography is the gold standard in the evaluation of the severity of mitral stenosis. Another method of measuring the severity of mitral stenosis is the simultaneous left and right heart chamber catheterization. The right heart catheterization (commonly known
Mitral insufficiency broad, notched P waves in several or many leads with a prominent late negative component to the P wave in lead V, and may be seen in MI, but also in mitral stenosis, and, potentially, any cause of overload of the left atrium. Thus, "P-sinistrocardiale" may be a more appropriate term. The degree of severity of MR can be quantified by the regurgitant fraction, which is the percentage of the left ventricular stroke volume that regurgitates into the left atrium. where V and V are, respectively, the volumes of blood that flow forward through the mitral valve and aortic valve