Pulmonary Valve Abnormality

This section is merely a convenient peg on which to hang cases that involve a valvular or outflow abnormality. Individual pathologies are listed separately.

Any impairment to drainage of a chamber can be divided into two types.

• Valvular with the turbulence that comes from a sudden change in calibre and which produces a post-stenotic dilatation that may be recognised on the Radiograph.
• A more gradual structural abnormality with a more gradual change in lumen, minimal turbulence and no dilatation after the stenosis.

Any valve that will not close causes chamber dilatation just before the valve in the line of flow. Reversing flow through an incompetent valve will refill the chamber that has to dilate in order to maintain (conjecturally, the same) output.

Brock listed the varieties of Pulmonary Stenosis as:

1. Valvular stenosis with a normal aortic root
2. Infundibular stenosis with a normal aortic root
3. Pulmonary atresia
4. Tricuspid atresia (inflow tract obstruction
5. Fallot's Tetralogy (Pulmonary stenosis and large VSD)
6. Pulmonary stenosis in double outflow right ventricle
7. Pulmonary stenosis in Transposition of Great Arteries
8. Pulmonary stenosis with commmon Ventricle