Abstract
Aortic stenosis is found in 2.5% of patients aged over 65 years, and in developed countries it is the most commonly corrected valve disease. Our aim was to review the dia-gnosis of aortic stenosis and its pitfalls.
The dia-gnosis is based on echocardiographic maximal transaortic velocity, mean transaortic gradient and calculated aortic valve area. In case of discordance between the distinctive parameters, further assessment relies mainly on the ejection fraction and stroke volume of the left ventricle.
In 2007, the real time three-dimensional transesophageal echocardiography was introduced into clinical practice. This method enables three-dimensional dataset acquisition of the selected part of the aorta or aortic valve and reliable measurement of dimensions using multiplanar reconstruction of the image.
Accurate measurements are crucial for valve prosthesis sizing before transcatheter implantation of the aortic valve, and the three-dimen-sional transesophageal echocardiography provides results that are closest to the computed tomography measurements.