Transcranial high-intensity Doppler signals in patients with mechanical heart valve prostheses: their relationship with abnormal intracavitary echoes.

Abstract

The percentage of patients with HITS in a non-selected group with mechanical heart valves was about 50%, as observed in previous studies. It appears that in a selected group of patients the percentage with HITS is consistently higher. Therefore, HITS and abnormal intracardiac echoes could have a common origin.