Left ventricular hypertrophy and mortality after aortic valve replacement for aortic stenosis. A high risk subgroup identified by preoperative relative wall thickness.

OBJECTIVES

We investigated the relation between the extent and pattern of left ventricular hypertrophy and surgical outcome in 54 patients undergoing aortic valve replacement for severe aortic stenosis.

BACKGROUND

Previous work from our laboratory has demonstrated that a subgroup of patients, mostly elderly women with Doppler evidence of abnormal intracavitary flow acceleration, had an unexpectedly high in-hospital mortality rate after aortic valve replacement for aortic stenosis. We hypothesized that marked concentric hypertrophy, rather than the Doppler signal itself, was related to the poor outcome.

METHODS

A retrospective analysis of the clinical, hemodynamic and echocardiographic data in patients who survived aortic valve replacement versus those who died in the hospital was performed.

RESULTS

There were no differences between the 42 survivors and 12 nonsurvivors with regard to the clinical or hemodynamic variables. Of the echocardiographic variables analyzed, diastolic relative wall thickness was found to be significantly different between the two groups. Patients who died had significantly greater relative wall thickness (mean +/- SD) than those who survived (0.72 +/- 0.38 vs. 0.56 +/- 0.15, p = 0.04). Analysis by gender demonstrated that the relation between ventricular geometry and mortality held true only for women.

CONCLUSIONS

We conclude that excessive ventricular hypertrophy, manifested as a markedly increased relative wall thickness, is associated with a significantly increased risk of postoperative mortality after aortic valve replacement for aortic stenosis.