BACKGROUND In adults, acquired pressure-overload left ventricular hypertrophy can result in myocardial ischemia, which may be due in part to insufficient capillary growth during development of hypertrophy. The coronary microvascular response to congenital pressure-overload hypertrophy in children has not been previously characterized. METHODS AND RESULTS Average capillary density and heteroge...

Real-time, cross-sectional echocardiograms were recorded in 28 consecutive adult patients with valvular aortic stenosis using a high resolution, mechanical sector scanner. Using the cross-sectional technique, the aortic valve orifice diameter was recorded in each of the 28 patients. With M-mode echocardiographic examination of these same patients, this value could be estimated in only 21 of the...

ONE of the most frustrating and frequent problems faced by the pediatric cardiologist is that of differentiating between a child with mild and physiologically unimportant congenital aortic stenosis and one whose lesion is severe and therefore potentially dangerous. In an asymptomatic younger child with the typical murmur and thrill of aortic stenosis but no evidence of left ventricular hypertro...

A bicuspid aortic valve is the most common cause of isolated valvular aortic stenosis in the pediatric age group; another cause is annular hypoplasia, with the tricuspid valve being the least commonly involved. In aortic stenosis, causes of systolic dysfunction are critical stenosis, secondary fibroelastosis and noncompaction. Critical stenosis is diagnosed in the usual fashion. Secondary fibro...

During the past several years therapeutic catheterization techniques have been developed to provide nonsurgical treatment for children with congenital aortic valve stenosis,',2 subvalvar aortic sten o ~ i s , ~ mitral s ten~s is ,~ ,~ and coarctation of the a ~ r t a . ~ , ~ Transcatheter therapy is now generally regarded as the treatment of choice for children with valvar pulmonic stenosis, pu...

Congenital thoracic arterial anomalies can be incidentally detected in adults from imaging studies performed for other indications. Multidetector computed tomography plays a critical role in the noninvasive assessment of these anomalies and associated cardiac, mediastinal, or parencyhmal changes by providing volumetric data. Radiologists should be familiar with imaging findings ...

From 1986 to 1988, balloon aortic valvuloplasty was performed in 32 patients with congenital valvular aortic stenosis. The patients ranged in age from 2 days to 28 years (mean +/- SD 8.3 +/- 5.9). One balloon was used in 17 patients and two balloons were used in 15 patients. Immediately after valvuloplasty, peak systolic pressure gradient across the aortic valve decreased significantly from 77 ...