Frailty and Cardiovascular Disease.

Another paper looking at interaction of old age and frailty, and outcomes in cardiovascular disease. We need more of these papers. Demographics suggest that the number of people reaching their 80s or higher will increase exponentially. Dementia has quite rightly grabbed all the headlines as a consequence of this demographic change. Cardiovascular disease including aortic valve stenosis and its often invasive treatments must also be considered when we study old age and its effects.

ASYMPTOMATIC AORTIC VALVE STENOSIS

Management of asymptomatic aortic stenosis -- Iung 97 (3): 253 -- Heart An excellent piece by Bernard Lung. The fact that the traditional practice of waiting for symptoms to occur before referring for surgery was devised in the pre-echocardiography era is worth repeating over and over. If a patient has severe calcific aortic valve stenosis, they should be referred for surgery- period! It is regrettable