European Journal of Echocardiography Advance Access originally published online on June 9, 2009
European Journal of Echocardiography 2009 10(7):880-883; doi:10.1093/ejechocard/jep079
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Dynamic left ventricular dyssynchrony: a potential cause of no contractile reserve in patients with low-gradient aortic stenosis
1 Department of Cardiology, University Hospital of Liège, B-4000 Liège, Belgium
2 Department of Cardiology, University Hospital of Amiens, Picardie, France
Received 13 March 2009; accepted after revision 16 May 2009; online publish-ahead-of-print 9 June 2009.
* Corresponding author. Tel: +32 4 366 71 94; fax: +32 4 366 71 95. E-mail address: plancellotti{at}chu.ulg.ac.be
| Abstract |
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Dobutamine stress echocardiography (DSE) has the potential to stratify patients with low-gradient aortic stenosis (AS) but little is known about ventricular dyssynchrony associated with AS. We report the case of a patient who presented AS associated with left ventricular (LV) dyssynchrony. A DSE was performed, which showed no contractile reserve but an increase in LV dyssynchrony. In this patient, the reduced aortic valve area was probably because of the association of inadequate forward stroke volume due to ischaemic cardiomyopathy and fixed severe AS. The cause of LV dysfunction may include a certain degree of intrinsic myocardial dysfunction due to ischaemic cardiomyopathy and afterload mismatch associated with dynamic LV dyssynchrony, which could be a determinant of forward stroke volume response.
Keywords: Aortic stenosis; Low gradient; Left ventricular dyssynchrony