Aortic stenosis

Aortic stenosis is a problem whereby the exit from the heart’s left ventricle into the aorta, is narrowed & may affect the valve separating the two structures, or the tissues above or below the valve.

Overview

In patients with aortic stenosis, we demonstrated that the electrocardiographic strain pattern associated with left ventricular hypertrophy is indicative of myocardial fibrosis. We described a risk prediction model for patients with aortic stenosis demonstrating the important role of myocardial fibrosis imaging in determining future events.

This formed the basis of the Sir Jules Thorn Award for Biomedical Research 2015 to Dr Marc Dweck, which has funded a multi-centre clinical trial of early surgery in patients with advanced asymptomatic aortic stenosis using MR-based T1-mapping techniques, to characterise the fibrosis progression associated with this disease.