Juraj Podracký
In the article the author deals with tricuspid regurgitation (TR). He shortly describes etiology and clinic of this valvular disease and further he pays attention to echocardiographic imaging of the tricuspid valve and present management of haemodynamically serious TR. Tricuspid regurgitation is a relatively common anomaly – mild (“physiological”) TR is present in 70 % of normal individuals and pathological significant TR in a high percentage of patients with serious cardiac disease. As this lesion is often asymptomatic and it might not be detected at physical examination, it is usually diagnosed only in an echocardiographic examination. TR in adults is usually functional, which is defined as regurgitation without organic changes on the tricuspid valve and its cause is pressure (pulmonary hypertension) or volume overload of the right chamber related to dilatation of the right compartments of the heart and the tricuspid ring. As severe TR is an independent predictor of mortality in several serious heart diseases at present active management of symptomatic TR is preferred together with the treatment of underlying cause – the most frequently the disease of the left heart.