Increased systolic energy loss of aortic valve prostheses due to ascending aortic aneurysm

Abstract

Objectives: The hemodynamic burden of native stenotic or small prosthetic aortic valves usually is expressed by the valve orifice area and the Doppler-gradient. But Doppler-echocardiography does not take into account the geometry of the aortic root and ascending aorta. We evaluated the influence of aortic root dilatation on the energy loss of a 19mm bileaflet aortic valve (On-X®).