Abstract
The electrocardiogram, phonocardiogram, carotid pulse tracing and apexcardiogram were simultaneously obtained in 25 patients with mitral valve prolapse syndrome and in 62 normal subjects. This allowed us to measure systolic and diastolic time intervals and to construct the apex-carotis diagram (ACD), a new mechanocardiographic method which integrated the catotid pulse tracing and the apexcardiogram in an ortho-gonal coordinate system. In mitral valve prolapse syndrome, the ACD showed curve of the segment of slow ventricular ejection (S-AC) to the right, and a decrease of the field of ventricular ejection. The measur-ment of time intervals gave statistically significant information on Q-I and A2-OS intervals.
