Prevalence of comоrbidities in a cohort of patients with hemodynamically significant, pure aortic stenosis and sinus rhythm, admitted to cardiosurgery for a primary, isolated aortic valve replacement

Once judged a degenerative disease, aortic valve stenosis is now believed to be very similar in terms of pathogenesis to atherosclerosis. This initial plaque of aortic stenosis is alike that of coronary artery disease. Risk factors associated with coronary artery disease - including age, male sex, hyperlipidaemia, and evidence of active inflammation - are held in common by the two disorders. Over the past decade a new hypothesis was coined, that comorbidities such as overweight/obesity, diabetes mellitus, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and salt-sensitive hypertension induce a systemic proinflammatory state wich, in turn, favours hypertrophy development. The latter contributes to high diastolic left ventricular stiffness and heart failure development. Comorbidities, along with other important biological markers, are proposed to be included in diagnostic algorithms. It is expected that comorbidities may have an important impact on the prognosis after aortic valve remplacement in patients with calcific aortic valve stenosis. In the current paper, we analyse the comorbidity profile amont patients with hemodynamically significant, pure aortic stenosis and sinus rhythm, admitted to cardiosurgery clinic for primary, isolated aortic valve replacement.Key words: aortic valve stenosis, aortic valve replacement, comorbidit

Abstracts of the 20th annual meeting of the association `Heart - Lung` and 2nd „Varna - Augsburg` conference 30-31 may 2014

Primary tumours of the heart are rare. Metastases are the most frequent tumours of the heart. Anyway, it is generallyagreed that autopsy prevalence of primary cardiac tumors is 1 out of 2,000 and that of secondary cardiactumors is 1 out of 100 autopsies, with a secondary/primary cardiac tumors ratio of 20:1. Cardiac tumors may occurin any cardiac tissue. They can cause valvular or inflow-outflow tract obstruction, thromboembolism, arrhythmias,or pericardial disorders. Symptoms are very variable and can be the result of either local or systemiceffects. Surgery is successful for benign tumours when adequate resection margins are allowed. A number of imagingmodalities are available for the assessment of cardiac tumours; each has advantages and limitations. Thisreport presents our experience in the treatment of tumors of the hear