European heart journal cardiovascular Imaging
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Eur Heart J Cardiovasc Imaging · Dec 2018
Doppler assessment of aortic stenosis: a 25-operator study demonstrating why reading the peak velocity is superior to velocity time integral.
Measurements with superior reproducibility are useful clinically and research purposes. Previous reproducibility studies of Doppler assessment of aortic stenosis (AS) have compared only a pair of observers and have not explored the mechanism by which disagreement between operators occurs. Using custom-designed software which stored operators' traces, we investigated the reproducibility of peak and velocity time integral (VTI) measurements across a much larger group of operators and explored the mechanisms by which disagreement arose. ⋯ It is far more reproducible to measure the peak of a Doppler trace than the VTI, a strategy that reduces measurement variance by approximately six-fold. Peak measurements are superior to VTI because tracing the steep slopes in the early and late part of the VTI envelope is difficult to achieve reproducibly.
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Eur Heart J Cardiovasc Imaging · Sep 2018
Comparative StudyPrognostic relevance of mitral and tricuspid regurgitation in patients with severe aortic stenosis.
Although concomitant mitral regurgitation (MR) and tricuspid regurgitation (TR) are frequently present in patients with aortic stenosis (AS), outcome data are scarce and treatment strategies are controversial. The aim of the present study was to assess the presentation and outcome of patients with AS and coexisting MR and TR. ⋯ Presence of MR in patients with severe AS characterizes a high-risk population. Timely aortic valve intervention confers a survival benefit and concomitant mitral valve surgery should be considered according to operative risk. The additional presence of significant TR is associated with dismal outcomes, regardless of the treatment strategy.