TY  - JOUR
A1  - Salinger, Tim
A1  - Hu, Kai
A1  - Liu, Dan
A1  - Herrmann, Sebastian
A1  - Lorenz, Kristina
A1  - Ertl, Georg
A1  - Nordbeck, Peter
T1  - Cardiac amyloidosis mimicking severe aortic valve stenosis - a case report demonstrating diagnostic pitfalls and role of dobutamine stress echocardiography
JF  - BMC Cardiovascular Disorders
N2  - Background
Aortic valve stenosis is a common finding diagnosed with high sensitivity in transthoracic echocardiography, but the examiner often finds himself confronted with uncertain results in patients with moderate pressure gradients and concomitant systolic heart failure. While patients with true-severe low-gradient aortic valve stenosis with either reduced or preserved left ventricular systolic function are primarily candidates for valve replacement, there is a relevant proportion of patients with pseudo-severe aortic valve stenosis anticipated not to benefit but actually rather deteriorate by interventional therapy or surgery.

Case presentation
In this article we present a case report of a male patient with pseudo-severe aortic valve stenosis due to cardiac amyloidosis highlighting the diagnostic schedule. The patient underwent stress echocardiography because of discrepant findings in transthoracic echocardiography and cardiac catheterization regarding the severity of aortic valve stenosis. After evaluation of the results, it became clear that he had a need for optimum heart failure medication and implantation of a cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillator.

Conclusion
Due to the pitfalls in conventional as well as invasive diagnostics at rest, Stress echocardiography should be considered part of the standard optimum diagnostic spectrum in all unclear or borderline cases in order to confirm the correct diagnosis and constitute optimal therapy.
KW  - aortic valve stenosis (AS)
KW  - case report
KW  - pseudo-severe AS
KW  - low-gradient AS
KW  - dobutamine stress echocardiography
KW  - cardiac amyloidosis
Y1  - 2017
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-171109
VL  - 17
IS  - 86
ER  -