Coronary flow reserve in patients with aortic stenosis and nonobstructed coronary arteries.

Objective: Patients with moderate and severe aortic stenosis (AS) and without obstructive epicardial coronary disease have been shown to have an impairment of coronary flow velocity reserve (CFVR). Recently, it has been shown that CFVR is an independent predictor for future cardiovascular events in AS patients. We investigated parameters representing left ventricular (LV) mass and wall thickness, diastolic dysfunction, LV workload and haemodynamic indexes of AS severity to determine which contributes the most to impaired CFVR in patients with AS and a nonobstructed coronary angiogram.

Outcomes after normal dobutamine stress echocardiography and predictors of adverse events: long-term follow-up of 3014 patients.

Aims: Normal exercise echocardiography predicts a good prognosis. Dobutamine stress echocardiography (DSE) is generally reserved for patients with comorbidities which preclude exercise testing. We evaluated predictors of adverse events after normal DSE.

Isolated supravalvular pulmonary artery ridge in a 70-year-old man.

Transthoracic echocardiography allows noninvasive assessment of the structure and function of the great vessels of the heart. We report a case of a 70-year-old man who had an isolated, mildly obstructive, supravalvular pulmonary artery ridge that was detected incidentally with transthoracic echocardiography. This report confirms the utility of transthoracic echocardiography in the detection of this condition and discusses quantification of this rare anomaly.

Acquired right atrial blood cyst: a hitherto unrecognized complication of cardiac operation.

Blood-filled cysts within the heart are rare anomalies, usually congenital, and are seen predominately in infants. We report an unusual case of a 68-year-old woman with an acquired right atrial blood-filled cyst that developed after mitral and tricuspid valve operation and that was detected using 2-dimensional echocardiography. We propose that surgical trauma resulted in the formation of the cyst.