Why the study?
Does cardiac CT improve the detection of aortic valve replacement complications compared to conventional echocardiography in patients with prosthetic valves?
Does cardiac CT improve the detection of aortic valve replacement complications compared to conventional echocardiography in patients with prosthetic valves?
Cardiac CT serves as a valuable complementary imaging modality to echocardiography for the early detection and detailed assessment of prosthetic aortic valve complications.
Cardiac CT may complement echocardiography for prosthetic aortic valve complications; leaves open need for prospective comparative trials.
Aortic valve replacement is the second most common cardiothoracic procedure in the UK. With an ageing population, there are an increasing number of patients with prosthetic valves that require follow-up. Imaging of prosthetic valves is challenging with conventional echocardiographic techniques making early detection of valve dysfunction or complications difficult. CT has recently emerged as a complementary approach offering excellent spatial resolution and the ability to identify a range of aortic valve replacement complications including structural valve dysfunction, thrombus development, pannus formation and prosthetic valve infective endocarditis. This review discusses each and how CT might be incorporated into a multimodal cardiovascular imaging pathway for the assessment of aortic valve replacements and in guiding clinical management.
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Moss et al. (2016) studied this question.
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