Introduction:

Aortic stenosis is the most frequent valvular heart disease, with incidence about 2 to 9% in elderly patients. Echocardiography has become the most important technique for diagnosis.

Objective:

To correlate the left ventricle morphology, left atrial volume index and the E/e’ wave velocity ratio in patients with aortic valve stenosis of different magnitudes.

Methods:

Conventional measurements in M-mode echocardiography, two-dimensional, pulsed, continuous, color and tissue Doppler reports were performed, obtaining: left ventricle diastolic diameter, left ventricle systolic diameter, end-diastole interventricular septum thickness, end-diastole posterior wall thickness, left ventricle ejection fraction, end-diastole thickness/radius ratio, left ventricular mass, end-systole left atrium volume, peak systolic aortic jet velocity, peak and mean systolic aortic gradient and aortic valve area, E wave and e’ wave in 42 patients with diagnosis of aortic stenosis.

Results:

Twelve cases (28.5%) were mild; 17 patients (40.5%) moderate and 13 cases (31%) with severe stenosis. Left ventricle concentric remodeling was three times more in cases of moderate and severe stenosis (p < 0.05). End-systole left atrial volume increased 32% in moderate stenosis and 33% in severe stenosis. The E/e’ wave ratio increased parallel as the severity of the stenosis, 33% in moderate stenosis (p < 0.05) and 56% in severe cases (p < 0.05).

Conclusions:

In aortic stenosis left ventricle concentric remodeling is three times more frequent, end-systole left atrial volume increases more than 30% from moderate degrees and E/e´ wave ratio increases 30% in moderate cases and 50% in severe cases. The latter two could be used as new markers of aortic stenosis severity classification.

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