Flyer

Health Science Journal

  • ISSN: 1791-809X
  • Journal h-index: 61
  • Journal CiteScore: 17.30
  • Journal Impact Factor: 18.23
  • Average acceptance to publication time (5-7 days)
  • Average article processing time (30-45 days) Less than 5 volumes 30 days
    8 - 9 volumes 40 days
    10 and more volumes 45 days
Awards Nomination 20+ Million Readerbase
Indexed In
  • Genamics JournalSeek
  • China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI)
  • CiteFactor
  • CINAHL Complete
  • Scimago
  • Electronic Journals Library
  • Directory of Research Journal Indexing (DRJI)
  • EMCare
  • OCLC- WorldCat
  • MIAR
  • University Grants Commission
  • Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research
  • Euro Pub
  • Google Scholar
  • SHERPA ROMEO
  • Secret Search Engine Labs
Share This Page

Research Article - (2017) Volume 11, Issue 2

Frequency of Calcific Aortic Stenosis in Tertiary Care Hospital of Karachi

Erum Afaq1*, Muhammad Kashif Nisar2 and Sultana Habib3

1Department of Physiology, Liaqat National Hospital and Medical College, Pakistan

2Department of Biochemistry, Jinnah Medical and Dental College, Pakistan

3National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, Pakistan

*Corresponding Author:

Erum Afaq
Department of Physiology, Liaqat National Hospital and Medical College, Pakistan
Tel: +92300-2248447
E-mail: doc_erum@yahoo.com

Received date: 07 December 2016; Accepted date: 06 March 2017; Published date: 15 March 2017

Citation: Afaq E, Nisar MK, Habib S. Frequency of Calcific Aortic Stenosis in Tertiary Cares Hospital of Karachi. Health Sci J 2017, 11: 2. doi: 10.21767/1791-809X.1000490

Copyright: © 2017 Afaq E, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative Commons attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Visit for more related articles at Health Science Journal

Abstract

Background: Calcific aortic stenosis (AS) has become one of the most frequent types of Valvular Heart Disease (VHD) among elderly patients. Prevalence of aortic valve disease (AVD) increases with age and the incidence of calcific AS are on the rise as the general age of the population increases. Objectives: This study was conducted to find out the frequency of calcific AS in patients of tertiary care hospital. Methods: The cross sectional study was carried out in National Institute of Cardiovascular Disease (NICVD) during the period of January to December 2012 after institute approval. A total of 50 echocardiographically diagnosed elderly patients of calcific AS were included from OPD and echocardiography department. All patients were evaluated for clinical features, ECG, echocardiographic findings and outcome were noted and analyzed by using software SPSS version 21. Results: In our study we found 62% male and 38% female. The mean age was 67.12 years ± 5.08 with the range of 60 to 85 years. On echocardiography, out of 50 AS selected patients 18% had mild AS, 22% had moderate AS, and 60% had severe AS. One bicuspid aortic valve has been found. Conclusion: In elderly calcific AS constitutes a significant health problem. As the age advances it is an important cause of cardiovascular mortality and morbidity.

Keywords

Valvular heart diseases; Cardiovascular; Heart diseases

Introduction

Valvular Heart Diseases (VHD) are regarded as one of the major public health concern. A signifcant rise in the prevalence of cardiac valve disease with age is observed in a recent large study [1]. Non-rheumatic stenosis of tri-leaflet aortic valves, often termed senile or calcific valvular aortic stenosis, is considered a "degenerative" process [2]. Aortic stenosis is a serious disease with a prolonged latent period, progresses very fast when symptoms become evident and a very high mortality rate is associated (approximately 50% in the first 2 years after symptoms appear) among untreated patient [1,3].

By 2050 population aged ≥ 65 years is expected to rise by two-fold due to a drastic change in age structure in the western world. In the year 2000, it was estimated that 10.9% of the total population was aged between 64-85 years and this proportion is expected to be increased to 16% by 2050. Furthermore, it is also estimated that by 2050, 4.3% of the population will be comprising of individuals with ≥ 85 years of age, which is more than two-fold rise from 2010 [4].

Keeping in view the growth rate, it is expected that adult population aged ≥ 85 years will increase from 5.8 million in 2010 to 19 million by 2050 which is a 228% rise. This indicates considerable burden of cost of treatment related to cardiovascular disease in terms of morbidity and mortality [4,5].

In Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS), it was shown that in patients aged 65-74 years the prevalence of AS is increased from 1.3% to 2.4% when compared with those aged 75-84 and 4% increase among those ≥ 85 years. The burden of disease due to severe AS in elderly patients is remarkable with a pooled prevalence of 3.4%. This represents increase in the incidence of AS due to general increase of age in the population [6]. Poor prognosis with 2 year mortality rate of 50-60% and 3 year survival rate of less than 30% is evident if the severe symptomatic AS remains untreated [6,7]. Males are affected most frequently [8].

This study was undertaken to elucidate the frequency of aortic valve stenosis in the elderly patients visiting tertiary care hospital in Karachi.

Materials and Methods

This is a cross-sectional study conducted in National Institute of Cardiovascular Disease (NICVD) Karachi-Pakistan during the period of January to December 2012 after approval from Ethical Committee NICVD. Non probability purposive sampling was performed and a total of 50 echocardiographically diagnosed elderly patients of calcific aortic stenosis were included from OPD, emergency (ER) and echocardiography department. Patients came to NICVD from all provinces of Pakistan. Most of the patients to OPD or ER with the complaint of chest pain, shortness of breath, orthopnea, syncope, systolic hypertension and/or systolic murmur. Clinical examination, ECG and echocardiography have been carried out. Echocardiographic findings and outcome were noted and analyzed. Toshiba Aplio with cardiac protocol was used and performed by a qualified doctor echocardiographer. Patients were grouped into three on the basis of echocardiographic finding by 2D, color Doppler and both qualitative and quantitative evaluation by continuous and pulse wave Doppler and severity was assessed by using continuity equation. As is defined as calcified and/or thickened aortic leaflets with restricted movement of leaflet during systole. Mild, moderate, severe AS was defined as Mean gradient <20 mmHg and valve area is ≤ 2.0 cm2, Mean gradiant 20-39 mmHg and valve area 1-2 cm2 , Mean gradient ≥ 40 mmHg with valve area ≤ 1, respectively [9,10]. Patients who have severe aortic regurgitation, prosthetic valves, familial hypercholesterolemia (total cholesterol >300 mg/dl in adults) and cancer are excluded from our study. We have also eliminated the patients from our study who have history of endocarditis, chronic renal failure, rheumatoid arthritis, rheumatic fever or rheumatic heart disease and echocardiographic evidence of rheumatic valvular stenosis.

Data was entered in Microsoft Excel and analyze using SPSS version 21. Descriptive analysis was done according to the type of variable. For numeric data mean and standard deviation was calculated whereas for categorical data frequency and percentages.

Results

Fifty aortic stenosis patients have been observed during the study period. The age distribution and gender among AS patients is presented in Table 1. The mean age and standard deviation for the AS patients was 67.12 years ± 5.08 with the range of 60 to 85 years. There were 62% male and 38% female.

Variables Aortic Stenosis Patients
Age Mean ± SD 67.12 ± 5.08
Range 60 - 85
Gender Males 31 (62%)
Females 19 (38%)
SD: standard deviation, yr: years, Range: minimum-maximum, Percentage: %

Table 1: Demographic profile of aortic stenosis patients.

On echocardiography out of 50 AS selected patients 18% had mild AS, 22% had moderate AS and 60% had severe AS. Out of 50 cases we found only one patient with bicuspid aortic valve (Table 2).

Aortic Stenosis Frequency (n) Percentage (%)
Mild 9 18%
Moderate 11 22%
Severe 30 60%

Table 2: Grouping of aortic stenosis patients.

Discussion

In this study we have demonstrated the frequency of nonrheumatic calcific aortic stenosis in the patient coming to tertiary care hospital of Karachi. Fifty calcific AS patients with minimum age of 60 years were seen in our study whereas in comparison to other studies in western world calcific AS was present in patients over 65 years of age this may be due to the fact that actual birth dates are quite often unknown because many individuals in Asia do not have an official record of their birth date [11-13].

It is evident by many studies that in general population men and women were equally affected by most of the VHD [1]. In our study calcific AS was shown to be more common in males (62%) as compare to females (38%) with a male to female ratio of 1.6:1. This result was in accordance with studies conducted by Nkomo et al. [1] and Otto et al. [14], this is because of the fact that male gender is one of the risk factor for calcific AS [7,15].

According to epidemiological studies in people aged 75 years and older moderate or severe AS is seen in more than one in eight people [16]. Valvular heart diseases often remains underdiagnosed in the population as most of the patients reported after the symptoms exacerbated. This is the reason we found more calcific AS cases in severe form. This is in concordance to the study says that many patients with symptoms of severe AS do not consult for expert opinion about valve replacement [16].

Conclusion

VHD represents an important health issue of public concern as moderate to severe valvular disorders with the increase in age are common in our population. Appropriate measures should be adopted in order to make accurate and timely diagnosis and treatment of the disease.

Acknowledgement

Authors acknowledged Dr. Habiba and her team for her contribution in echocardiographic diagnosis of calcific aortic stenosis.

Funding

None.

Conflict of interest

None stated.

18804

References

  1. Nkomo VT, Gardin JM, Skelton TN, Gottdiener JS, Scott CG, et al. (2006) Burden of valvular heart diseases: a population-based study. Lancet 368: 1005-1011.
  2. Novaro GM, Griffin BP (2003) Calcific aortic stenosis: Another face of atherosclerosis? Cleveland Clin J Med 70: 471-477.
  3. Iung B, Cachier A, Baron G, Messika-Zeitoun D, Delahaye F, et al. (2005) Decision-making in elderly patients with severe aortic stenosis: why are so many denied surgery? Eur Heart J 26: 2714-2720.
  4. Vincent GK, Velkoff VA (2010) The next four decades: The older population in the United States: 2010 to 2050. US Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, US Census Bureau.
  5. Yazdanyar A, Newman AB (2009) The burden of cardiovascular disease in the elderly: morbidity, mortality, and costs. Clin Geriatr Med 25: 563-577.
  6. Osnabrugge RL, Mylotte D, Head SJ, Van Mieghem NM, Nkomo VT, et al. (2013) Aortic stenosis in the elderly: disease prevalence and number of candidates for transcatheter aortic valve replacement: a meta-analysis and modeling study. J Am Coll Cardiol 62: 1002-1012.
  7. Stewart BF, Siscovick D, Lind BK, Gardin JM, Gottdiener JS, et al. (1997) Clinical factors associated with calcific aortic valve disease fn1. J Am Coll Cardiol 29: 630-634.
  8. Monson JR, Weiser MR (2008) Sabiston textbook of surgery, the biological basis of modern surgical practice. Diseases of the Colon and Rectum 51: 1154.
  9. Novaro GM, Sachar R, Pearce GL, Sprecher DL, Griffin BP (2003) Association between apolipoprotein E alleles and calcific valvular heart disease. Circulation 108: 1804-1808.
  10. Armstrong WF, Ryan T (2012) Feigenbaum's echocardiography. Lippincott Williams and Wilkins, US.
  11. Iung B, Baron G, Butchart EG, Delahaye F, Gohlke-Bärwolf C, et al. (2003) A prospective survey of patients with valvular heart disease in Europe: The Euro Heart Survey on Valvular Heart Disease. Eur Heart J 24: 1231-1243.
  12. Faggiano P, Antonini-Canterin F, Baldessin F, Lorusso R, D'Aloia A, et al. (2006) Epidemiology and cardiovascular risk factors of aortic stenosis. Cardiovasc Ultrasound 4: 1.
  13. Kamath AR, Pai RG (2008) Risk factors for progression of calcific aortic stenosis and potential therapeutic targets. Int J Angiol 17: 63-70.
  14. Knomo V, Gardin J, Skelton T, Gottdiener J, Scott C, et al. (2006) Burden of valvular heart disease: a population-based study. Lancet 368: 1005-1011.
  15. Iung B, Baron G, Tornos P, Gohlke-Bärwolf C, Butchart EG, et al. (2007) Valvular heart disease in the community: a European experience. Curr Probl Cardiol 32: 609-661.