Abstract
Increased life expectancy has resulted in a growing population of elderly people, among whom aortic stenosis is increasingly prevalent. For the majority of patients, the treatment of aortic stenosis is surgical, and every symptomatic patient should be considered for aortic valve replacement. Although operative mortality seems to be declining over time, a substantial number of patients do not undergo surgery because of excessive risk, advanced age, or treatment preference of either the patient or the physician. The challenge in the near future will be the enhancement of tools for proper clinical decision-making, so that patients can be stratified to appropriate treatment alternatives. Reports on the treatment of aortic valve stenosis should, therefore, include all patients presenting with the disease and not only those who receive surgery.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
Levy F et al. (2008) Aortic vale replacement for low-flow/low-gradient aortic stenosis: operative risk stratification and long-term outcome: a European multicenter study. J Am Coll Cardiol 51: 1466–1472
Lindroos M et al. (1993) Prevalence of aortic valve abnormalities in the elderly: an echocardiographic study of a random population sample. J Am Coll Cardiol 21: 1220–1225
Iung B et al. (2005) Decision-making in elderly patients with severe aortic stenosis: why are so many denied surgery? Eur Heart J 26: 2714–2720
Bach DS et al. (2007) Prevalence, referral patterns, testing, and surgery in aortic valve disease: leaving women and elderly patients behind? J Heart Valve Dis 16: 362–369
European System for Cardiac Operative Risk Evaluation [http://www.euroscore.org]
The Society of Thoracic Surgeons National Database Risk Calculator [http://www.sts.org/sections/stsnationaldatabase/riskcalculator/]
Hannan EL et al. (2007) Risk index for predicting in-hospital mortality for cardiac valve surgery. Ann Thorac Surg 83: 921–929
Takkenberg JJ et al. (2003) Simulation models to predict outcome after aortic valve replacement. Ann Thorac Surg 75: 1372–1376
Grube E et al. (2006) Percutaneous implantation of the CoreValve self-expanding valve prosthesis in high-risk patients with aortic valve disease: the Siegburg first-in-man study. Circulation 114: 1616–1624
Cribier A et al. (2002) Percutaneous transcatheter implantation of an aortic valve prosthesis for calcific aortic stenosis: first human case description. Circulation 106: 3006–3008
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bogers, A., Kappetein, A. Management of elderly patients with aortic valve disease. Nat Rev Cardiol 5, 600–601 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncpcardio1310
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncpcardio1310
