TUESDAY, July 16, 2024 (HealthDay News) — A significant proportion of older adults with no history of valvular heart disease (VHD) have asymptomatic VHD, and age is the only parameter associated with significant VHD, according to a study published online June 26. European Heart Journal: Cardiovascular Imaging.
Vasiliki Tsampasian, MD, PhD, from the Norwich Medical School at the University of East Anglia in the UK, and his colleagues conducted a prospective cohort study from 2007 to 2016 to investigate the prevalence and associated factors of asymptomatic VHD in individuals aged 60 years or older. Data from 4,237 participants were included.
The researchers found that VHD was diagnosed in 28.2 percent of patients. The most common types of VHD were tricuspid, mitral, and aortic regurgitation (13.8, 12.8, and 8.3 percent, respectively). The prevalence of clinically significant VHD was 2.4 percent, with moderate and severe at 2.2 and 0.2 percent, respectively. Mitral and aortic regurgitation were the most common. Age was the only parameter associated with significant VHD (odds ratio, 1.07 per year). The number of scans needed to diagnose one case of clinically significant VHD was 42 and 15 in individuals aged 60 and older and 75 and older, respectively.
“These valuable data may form the basis for further epidemiological studies evaluating the burden of VHD in the community and the potential role of echocardiography in the elderly population,” the authors wrote.
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