Tag Archives: valvular heart disease

Introduction Medicine has benefited from increasingly advanced diagnostic and therapeutic options, which enable more tailored patient-specific strategies, with improvements in both efficacy and safety. Artificial intelligence (AI) was first researched in 1955 when John McCarthy proposed a project that attempted to “make machines use language, form abstractions and concepts, solve kinds of problems now reserved for humans, and improve themselves.”1 In the 1970s, a new probabilistic model was developed that could simulate the process of expert decision-making by assigning weight to every clinical finding to indicate its possibility of occur

Epidemiology of AS Prevalence AS is the most common valvular heart disease, accounting for 43% of valvular pathologies.1 Most cases are caused by calcification of the aortic valve leading to valve degeneration (termed calcified aortic valve disease [CAVD]), but rheumatic disease and congenital defects may also be responsible.8,9 The number of CAVD cases worldwide has been estimated at 9.4–12.6 million,9,10 although this may be an underestimate since many cases are asymptomatic and remain undiagnosed.11 Prevalence is particularly high in regions with a high sociodemographic index, including Europe, North America and Australasia, possibly re

Introduction Systolic heart failure (SHF) in patients with severe aortic stenosis (AS) carries a worse prognosis, and aortic valve replacement improves ventricular systolic function and survival.1,2 Therefore, SHF is an indication for aortic valve replacement in severe AS.2 Both surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) and transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) are associated with comparable survival and ventricular systolic function recovery in this group of patients.3 TAVR, however, is the recommended approach for patients with intermediate to prohibitive surgical risk; and SHF patients are often considered a high-risk group. As a re

European Society of Cardiology congress 2018, held in Munich Professor Jolien Roos-Hesselink, said: “Pregnancy is safe for most women with heart disease but for some it is too risky. Our study shows that fewer women with heart disease die or have heart failure during pregnancy than 10 years ago. However, nearly one in 10 women with pulmonary arterial hypertension died during pregnancy or early post-partum.” She added that pre-pregnancy counselling is crucial to identify women who should be advised against pregnancy, for instance in those with severe valvular heart disease, and to discuss the risks, options and to initiate timely treatment

Introduction It is accepted that coronary revascularisation with coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) provides both symptomatic and prognostic benefit in patients with multi-vessel coronary artery disease (mvCAD).1,2 Both percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and CABG provide better relief of angina symptoms than medical therapy alone.1,3 Large, randomised-controlled trials (RCTs), in recent years, have demonstrated that CABG offers an improved outcome in patients with complex three-vessel coronary artery disease (CAD), especially in those with co-existing diabetes mellitus.4,5 However, in patients with one- or two-vessel CAD, PCI o