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748-755, 1987. PROGNOSIS of patients with aortic dissection is determined by several factors: duration of dissection at the time of diagnosis, location of intimal tear, site and extent of the dissection, presence or absence of blood flow in the false lumen, presence of pericardial effusion and tamponade, and presence and severity of aortic regurgitation.' Therefore, since the survival rate and consequent therapeutic approach of patients with aortic dissection is influenced by both anatomic and flow conditions, an easy, repeatable technique capable of assessing this lesion noninvasively would be of great clinical usefulness.An accurate morphologic evaluation of the dissecting process is obtainable with different cardiac imaging techniques such as cineangiography,68 computed tomography, 91 magnetic resonance imaging, and two-dimensional echocardiography. 12-15 Among these imaging techniques, cineangiography is the only one that also provides data on blood flow conditions in both true and false lumina; however, because of its invasive nature and the need to inject a certain amount of contrast material during fluoroscopy, it is not suitable for serial evaluation of patients with dissection. Two-dimensional Doppler color flow mapping (color Doppler)`2 is a recently developed ultrasound techFrom the Cardiology Divisions, University of Bari, Italy, and the

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