INTRODUCTION For asymptomatic patients with moderate-severe valvular heart disease, in whom symptoms may be obscured, objective exercise tolerance measures are warranted for decisions concerning physical activities and surgical treatment. MATERIAL AND METHODS We compared 61 patients (39 with aortic stenosis, 22 with aortic or mitral regurgitation) to 23 controls without valvular heart disease...

Right atrial dilation due to left heart disease is a common complication among adults. The present review aimed to describe a case of massively dilated right atrium in a female patient presenting with valvular heart disease and no atrial fibrillation. The results of chest X-ray revealed a large opacity filling the lower right hemithorax, falsely interpreted as a mediastinal mass. During the tra...

A better knowledge of the natural history of valvular disease and the advances in surgical techniques are allowing to improve the prognosis of patients with valvular heart disease. At present, imaging techniques, particularly Doppler-echocardiography, is the main tool to determine the diagnosis and prognosis of patients with valvular heart disease. Consequently, decision making in valvular hear...

Mitral regurgitation (MR) is the second most common valvular heart disease in terms of prevalence and frequency indications for cardiac surgery. Severe MR characterized by a significant decrease exercise tolerance high mortality. The cause organic degenerative diseases. A detailed systematic assessment mitral valve mechanisms critical management these patients, planning type timing surgical int...

With the introduction of the target-specific oral anticoagulants (TSOAs), primary and secondary stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation (AF) has been revolutionized. Large randomized clinical trials and subsequent meta-analyses have clearly demonstrated that these agents have at least comparable if not superior efficacy and cause no more or even less major bleeding than vitamin K antagonists. ...

There are very few studies on valvular heart disease in women. There is a sex influence in the prevalence of some types of valve disease: it is well known that rheumatic mitral stenosis is very common in women but degenerative valve disease affects both sexes in a similar way. In degenerative aortic stenosis several physiopathological differences have been reported in women: the amount of calci...

CONTEXT Patients with undifferentiated systolic murmurs present commonly during the perioperative period. Traditional bedside assessment and auscultation has not changed significantly in almost 200 years and relies on interpreting indirect acoustic events as a means of evaluating underlying cardiac pathology. This is notoriously inaccurate, even in expert cardiology hands, since many different ...