Maryland Heart Center

Surgical Treatments

U.S. Aortic Stenosis Disease Prevalence & Treatment Statistics

Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death, killing more than 600,000 Americans each year.
According to the American Heart Association, more than five million Americans are diagnosed with heart valve disease each year.
Heart valve disease can occur in any single valve or a combination of the four valves, but diseases of the aortic and mitral valves are the most common, affecting more than five percent of the population.
While up to 1.5 million people in the U.S. suffer from aortic stenosis (AS), approximately 500,000 within this group of patients suffer from severe AS. An estimated 250,000 patients with severe AS are symptomatic.
An echocardiogram is the primary imaging test used to diagnose severe AS.
Without an aortic valve replacement (AVR), 50 percent of patients will not survive more than an average of two years after the onset of symptoms.
The predicted survival of inoperable patients with severe AS who are treated with standard non-surgical therapy is lower than with certain metastatic cancers.
Studies show that severe AS is undertreated. At many hospitals, more than 50 percent of patients that receive an echo and show the presence of the disease are not referred to a surgeon to be evaluated for an AVR. The absence of chest pain symptoms and overestimating risks associated with the AVR procedure have been identified as some of the reasons lack of patient referrals occur.
An estimated 85,000 AVR procedures are performed every year in the U.S.

References

Xu JQ, Kochanek KD, Murphy SL, Tejada-Vera B. Deaths: final data for 2007. [PDF - 3.41MB] National Vital Statistics Reports 2010;58(19).
American Heart Association. Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics – 2010 Update. Dallas, Texas: American Heart Association; 2010.
Bach DS, Siao D, Girard SE, Duvernoy C, McCallister BD, Jr., Gualano SK. Evalation of patients with severe symptomatic aortic stenosis who do not undergo aortic valve replacement: The potential role of subjectively overestimated operative risk. Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes 2009;2:533-539.
Bach DS. Prevalence and Characteristics of Unoperated Patients with Severe Aortic Stenosis. J Heart Valve Dis 2011;20:284-291.
Leon MB, Smith CR, Mack M, et al. Transcatheter aortic-valve implantation for aortic stenosis in patients who cannot undergo surgery. N Engl J Med. 2010;363(17):1597-1607.
Bach D, Radeva J, Birnbaum H, et al. Prevalence, Referral Patterns, Testing, and Surgery in Aortic Valve Disease: Leaving Women and Elderly Patients Behind. J Heart Valve Disease. 2007:362-9.
Nkomo V, Gardin M, Sktelton T, et al. Burden of valvular heart diseases: a population-based study (part 2). Lancet: 2006:1005-11.
Iivanainen A, Lindroos M, Tilvis R, et al. Natural History of Aortic Valve Stenosis of Varying Severity in the Elderly. Am J Cardiol. 1996:97-101.
Aronow W, Ahn C, Kronzon I. Comparison of Echocardiographic Abnormalities in African-American, Hispanic, and White Men and Women Aged >60 Years. Am J Cardiol. 2001:1131-3.

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