[Heart insufficiency in aortic valve disease: prognosis and treatment]

The purpose of this paper is to review the mortality rate in patients with aortic stenosis, and the special subgroup of this pathology associated with left ventricular dysfunction and clinical data of heart failure. The left ventricular dysfunction is recognized by low aortic gradients, and differentiation must be made between reversible ventricular dysfunction, in which case the optimal treatment is surgery, and irreversible ventricular disfunction, since in these cases surgical treatment will have excessively high mortality rates and no benefit.