As the average lifespan continues to increase, nurses are managing more patients with aortic stenosis. When an asymptomatic patient begins to manifest signs and symptoms due to progressive narrowing and stiffening of the aortic valve, the only effective therapy is surgical replacement of the valve. But, some patients cannot undergo or do not opt for surgery. Nurses are challenged by the tenuous...

Aortic valve stenosis has become increasingly prevalent, in agreement with the aging of the population. Thus, it has become increasingly common to treat asymptomatic patients with severe aortic stenosis. Although the patients with asymptomatic aortic stenosis belong to the same group, they are heterogeneous from a clinical, laboratory and echocardiographic point of view. The treatment of these ...

The study has focused on the retrospective analysis of cases of coexisting congenital aortic stenosis (AS) and pulmonary artery stenosis (PS) in dogs. The research included 5463 dogs which were referred for cardiological examination (including clinical examination, ECG and echocardiography) between 2004 and 2014. Aortic stenosis and PS stenosis were detected in 31 dogs. This complex defect was ...

Non-invasive continuous and pulsed wave Doppler ultrasonography was performed in 102 consecutive patients with clinically ill defined systolic murmurs to differentiate between flow murmurs, mitral regurgitation, aortic stenosis, and ventricular septal defect, as well as to assess the severity of aortic stenosis. Diagnoses with the Doppler method were based on velocity, direction, and duration o...

Low-flow, low-gradient aortic stenosis is a heterogeneous entity that encompasses truly severe aortic stenosis as well as mild-to-moderate aortic stenosis in which aortic valve orifice area is severely reduced primarily due to left ventricular (LV) contractile dysfunction. Under such circumstances the capacity of the LV to generate stroke-work is severely compromised. In this case report, we de...

We report the case of a 16-year-old pregnant patient with severe aortic stenosis and pulmonary congestion clinically uncontrolled, in whom percutaneous balloon aortic valvuloplasty was used as the first choice of treatment in an emergency procedure. The clinical findings, pathophysiology, diagnostic features, and indications for percutaneous treatment are reported. Severe congenital aortic sten...

We experienced a successful surgical Williams’s syndrome case of extended aortoplasty by means of Doty’s method (two sinus reconstructions) for congenital supravalvular aortic stenosis. Case was 29-year-old woman, who had no complaint except heart murmur and dyspnea. The retrograde aortography and Digital Subtraction Angiography (DSA) demonstrated localized stenosis just above the aortic valve,...

Rate-corrected left ventricular ejection time was measured from the aortic pressure tracings of 171 catheterised patients with aortic valve area less than or equal to 1.2 cm2. In 50 patients with pure aortic stenosis, left ventricular ejection time in increased with decreasing valve area and was significantly higher (468 +/- 5 ms, mean +/- SEM) than in 13 normal subjects (435 +/- 5 ms). Additio...

In the assessment of cases of aortic valve disease with a view to operation, the standard methods of investigation are of limited value. Right heart catheterization gives some indirect information by measuring the cardiac output and the pulmonary capillary pressure. Some information can be obtained from a study of the peripheral arterial pulse wave, but this too cannot always supply a definite ...

BACKGROUND Recent studies have supported the hypothesis that calcific aortic stenosis is the product of an active inflammatory process, with similarities to atherosclerosis. We sought to determine whether therapy with hydroxymethylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitors (statins) might slow the progression of aortic stenosis. METHODS AND RESULTS A retrospective study of 174 patients (mean ag...