Browsing by Author "Örn, Richard"

Aortic stenosis is the most important type of valvular heart disease among elderly patients, that often lead to valve replacement interventions. As the age structure shifts towards older age and life expectancy continues to rise, the prevalence of aortic stenosis is presumed to rise, resulting in more patients and additional expenses. Echocardiography is the most important tool for assessing aortic stenosis among patients. An experienced clinician can determine the severity of the disease with echocardiography alone, although the complete picture of a patient’s health must be evaluated during examination. The choice of intervention and timing thereof should be done by a heart team consisting consists of cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, radiologists, interventional radiologists and anaesthesiologists. Intervention is done by replacing the stenotic aortic valve with a functional synthetic valve either by surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) or by transcatheter aortic valve implant (TAVI). Echocardiography is used for evaluating prognosis and selecting type of care for each patient, based on the ECHO findings. This overview presents the use of transthoracic echocardiography as a tool for assessment of disease severity among patients with aortic stenosis, as well as advantages and limitations. The overview incudes a study of the clinical outcome of 30 patients with aortic stenosis treated with surgical aortic valve replacement and transcatheter aortic valve implant within the AS-AMYL study at the Helsinki University Hospital.