CARDIOVASCULAR SOUND affords a valuable diagnostic index in congenital and acquired heart diseases. Cinefluoroscopy is a widely accepted method for studying the form and kinetics of the heart and its component parts.1,2 Visualized cardiac action, including the movement of calcific valves, synchronized with associated acoustics, offers a means of extracting previously unused information from cardiovascular sound. Simultaneous recording of auscultatory phenomena incorporated with cinefluorography of the heart is called phonocinefluorocardiography.3
We first became interested in recording heart sounds in conjunction with cinefluorography while exploring the retrocardiac region with an esophageal stethoscope. This semirigid tube with a sensitive diaphragm and a spindle shaped balloon near its tip (Fig 1) resembles an ordinary stethoscope in that the column of air in the tube transmits the sound either directly to earpieces, or in this case, to a microphone.
Cinefluorography documents the position of the tube tip while sounds are recorded simultaneously