V alve replacement for aortic stenosis is easily recognized as life saving, because of the short survival of most patients with advanced symptomatic stages of aortic stenosis. However, there is an increased late mortality from congestive heart failure occurring years after the aortic valve replacement. This problem has been thought to relate to irreversible myocardial changes, manifested morpho...

Standard echocardiographic evaluation of aortic stenosis (AS) severity includes measurement of aortic velocity, mean transaortic pressure gradient, and continuity equation valve area. Although these measures are adequate for decision making in most patients, there is no single value that defines severe stenosis. Aortic stenosis affects not just the valve, but the entire vascular system, includi...

INTRODUCTION The aortic valve replacement is a standard operating procedure in patients with severe aortic stenosis. Structure of patients undergoing surgery ranges from young population with isolated mitral valvular disease to the elderly population, which is in addition to the underlying disease additionally burdened with comorbidity. One of the most commonly present factors that further comp...

BACKGROUND To account for differences in body size in patients with aortic stenosis, aortic valve area (AVA) is divided by body surface area (BSA) to calculate indexed AVA (AVAindex). Cut-off values for severe stenosis are <1.0 cm2 for AVA and <0.6 cm2/m2 for AVAindex. OBJECTIVE To investigate the influence of indexation on the prevalence of severe aortic stenosis and on the predictive accura...

As the population continues to age, aortic stenosis remains as the most prevalent valvular disease in Western countries. The number of elderly patients with aortic stenosis continues to pose both a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge. Despite new advances such as transcatheter aortic valvular replacement (TAVR), there is still much patient-provider decision making that needs to take place give...

C alcific aortic valve stenosis is by far the most common valve disease in developed countries. The first clinical symptoms usually appear in the late 60s. Prosthetic aortic valve replacement is the only effective treatment at present. The reasons for the occurrence of calcifications of the aortic cusps leading eventually after many years to aortic valve stenosis are unknown. Some risk factors,...

Aortic valve replacement following an earlier coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) procedure is fairly common. When this situation occurs, the type of valve dysfunction is usually stenosis (with or without regurgitation), and whether it was missed at the time of the earlier CABG or developed subsequently is usually unclear. We attempted to determine the survival in patients who had had aortic...

Three patients with severe congenital aortic stenosis in whom there was unusual thickening of the aortic valve associated with supra-aortic stenosis and aortic hypoplasia are described. The clinical presentation suggested the diagnosis of organic subaortic stenosis and surgical management presented problems. It is suggested that the aortic stenosis in these patients may be part of a more diffus...

Although bicuspid aortic valve occurs in an estimated 1% of adults and mitral valve prolapse in an estimated 5% of adults, occurrence of the 2 in the same patient is infrequent. During examination of operatively excised aortic and mitral valves because of dysfunction (stenosis and/or regurgitation), we encountered 16 patients who had congenitally bicuspid aortic valves associated with various t...

Abbreviations: AR aortic regurgitation, AS aortic stenosis, AVA aortic valve area, CSA cross sectional area, CWD continuous wave Doppler, D diameter, HOCM hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy, LV left ventricle, LVOT left ventricular outflow tract, MR mitral regurgitation, MS mitral stenosis, MVA mitral valve area, DP pressure gradient, RV right ventricle, RVOT right ventricular outflow trac...