Calcific aortic stenosis is a frequent degenerative disease, which represents the most common indication for adult heart valve surgery, and carries substantial morbidity and mortality. Due to ageing populations in western countries, its prevalence is expected to increase in the coming years. Basic science studies suggest that the progression of aortic valve stenosis involves an active biologica...

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...

Simultaneous recordings have been made of electrocardiogram, phonocardiogram, carotid pulse tracing, left ventricular pressure, and aortic pressure in 27 children with aortic valve stenosis and 3 children with membranous subaortic stenosis. Peak systolic pressure difference ranged from 10 to 110 mmHg (1.3 to 14.6 kPa). None of the patients had congestive heart failure and cardiac output was in ...

Calcific aortic stenosis is the third most common cause of aortic valve disease in developed countries. This condition increases in prevalence with advancing age, afflicting 2–3% of the population by the age of 65 years. The aging US population has led to a burgeoning number of valve replacements per year, which in turn costs the USA approximately $1 billion. The natural history, as described b...

Echocardiography was used to study left ventricular size and contraction in 128 patients with isolated aortic valve disease -45 patients with aortic stenosis, 25 with mixed aortic valve disease and 58 with aortic regurgitation. Left ventricular measurements included the end-diastolic internal dimension (LVIDd), mural thickness (PWTd), an index of circumferential myocardial contraction-fractiona...

1 | P a g e Up to 1.5 million people in the United States suffer from aortic stenosis (AS), a progressive disease that affects the aortic valve in their hearts. Approximately 250,000 of these patients suffer from severe symptomatic AS, often developing debilitating symptoms that can restrict normal day-to-day activities, such as walking short distances or climbing stairs. These patients can oft...

Aortic stenosis has an increasing prevalence in the context of aging population. In these patients non-invasive imaging allows not only the grading of valve stenosis severity, but also the assessment of left ventricular function. These two goals play a key role in clinical decision-making. Although left ventricular ejection fraction is currently the only left ventricular function parameter that...

Background. Although our comprehension of nonrheumatic aortic stenosis (NRAS) has increased substantially during the last decade, less is known about the histopathology of rheumatic aortic stenosis (RAS). The aim of this study was to investigate rheumatic aortic stenosis by means of analyses previously used in nonrheumatic stenosis. Material and Methods. Valve specimens were obtained from 39 pa...

Patients with severe aortic stenosis are sometimes not candidates for conventional open heart surgery because of severe deconditioning, excessive risk factors, and multiple comorbidities. Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is a relatively recent intervention, which was initially addressed to individuals with severe symptomatic aortic stenosis at substantial or prohibitive surgical r...

One of the challenges in clinical cardiology is to determine the optimal time of valve replacement surgery in patients with aortic stenosis. To meet this challenge, one requires an accurate knowledge of the natural history and rate of progression of the disease. This review will summarize the natural history of aortic stenosis in terms of symptoms, mortality, and stenosis progression.