Murmur Associated with Diastolic Paradoxical Jet Flow in a 43-Year-Old Man with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

A diastolic paradoxical jet flow, often seen in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, is a unique flow from the apex toward the base of the left ventricle during isovolumic relaxation. To date, this phenomenon appears to have been noninvasively detected only on echocardiograms. We report the case of a 43-year-old man with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and a diastolic paradoxical jet flow, in whom cardiac auscultation revealed a soft S4, a systolic ejection murmur, and a low-pitched early diastolic murmur immediately after S2 at the apex. On comparing his echocardiographic findings with those on phonocardiograms and apexcardiograms, we confirmed that the unusual murmur coincided with the diastolic jet flow. To our knowledge, this is the first case in which heart murmurs associated with a diastolic paradoxical jet flow have been clearly described. Because these flows can increase the risk of adverse outcomes, detecting any associated murmurs by methods other than echocardiography is worthwhile, even in the era of advanced imaging techniques.