Transesophageal color flow Doppler and echocardiographic features of normal and regurgitant St. Jude Medical prostheses in the aortic valve position

Transthoracic echocardiography and color flow Doppler have been shown to be of value in evaluating regurgitant St. Jude Medical (SJM) prostheses in the aortic valve position. 1 Transesophageal echocardiography and color flow Doppler show promise in evaluating normal functioning and regurgitant SJM mitral valves. 2,3 Recently transesophageal imaging has been shown to be superior to the transthoracic approach in demonstrating prosthetic valve vegetations. 4 This report describes our transesophageal ultrasound experience with 18 normal functioning, 2 regurgitant and 1 infected SJM prostheses in the aortic valve position.