ABSTRACT
Definition Aortic stenosis (AS) refers to congenital or acquired obstruction of blood flow through the aortic valve. However, in addition, some authors use the term in reference to supra-and subvalvular pathology. Supravalvular aortic stenosis is a rare form of outflow obstruction. The narrowing may be discreet or long and tubular. It is a congenital defect associated with elfin faces, hypercalcemia, mental retardation, and peripheral pulmonic stenosis (William’s Syndrome). Subvalvular stenosis may be caused by a ridge extending into the outflow tract, a cylindrical constriction of the outflow tract or, in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, by obstruction caused by the anterior movement of the mitral valve leaflets. In some patients this is present only at diminished left ventricular (LV) volumes recreated in the echocardiography laboratory by Valsalva (25-27). The turbulent flow produced may damage the aortic valve and subsequently cause aortic regurgitation (Nishimura, 2000).
