23/02/2022
🫀Aortic valve stenosis🫀
There’s much to be said about this chronic progressive disease, but here are a few things to keep in mind that have popped up on my previous exams when I was a medical student (hopefully you’ll score some points with this):
📚 Causes 📚
- Most commonly due to calcific aortic valvular disease
- May also occur due to rheumatic fever 🔥
📚 Pathophysiology 📚
- With worsening stenosis there’s increasing obstruction which leads to incomplete left ventricular emptying
- The increased work against the stenosis leads to left ventricular hypertrophy, and in turn relative ischemia
- The relative ischemia affects the myocardium, resulting in angina, arrhythmias and left ventricular failure
📚 Symptoms 📚
- Usually no symptoms until the stenosis is moderately severe
- Typical is exercise-induced (❗️) syncope, angina or dyspnea
📚 Auscultation 📚
- Ejection systolic murmur, described as “diamond-shaped” (crescendo-decrescendo) heard best in the aortic area
- Radiation can be heard to carotid arteries (❗️) and also precordium
📚 Classification of severe stenosis 📚
- Valve area 4.0 m/s
- Mean transvalvular gradient >40 mmHg
📚 Management 📚
- For symptomatic patients with severe AS, early intervention with aortic valve replacement is recommended (performed surgically or percutaneously)
- Treatment of asymptomatic patients with severe AS is controversial, but intervention is recommended if there is impaired left ventricular function
- In asymptomatic patients the main goal is disease monitoring as no therapy so far has shown to delay disease progression. If symptoms appear, prompt intervention is recommended
Ref: UpToDate, Clinical Medicine by Kumar & Clark, 2021 ESC/EACTS Guidelines