[Congenital aortic valve stenosis with left ventricular dysfunction: effect of percutaneous valvuloplasty]

Two girls aged 6 and 15 years with severe congenital valvular aortic stenosis and left ventricular (LV) dysfunction underwent successful balloon aortic valvotomy (BAV). Both patients had severe symptoms at the time of initial evaluation. The electrocardiograms showed LV hypertrophy and cardiac enlargement (cardiothoracic ratio 0.7 and 0.65) was evident in the chest roentgenograms. Immediately after BAV, the aortic valve peak-to-peak gradients decreased from 60 to 8 mmHg and 120 to 30 mmHg respectively, the LV end-diastolic pressures decreased from 47 to 13 mmHg and 40 to 15 mmHg, the LV ejection fractions improved from 40 to 65% in the second girl. On follow-up (30 and 36 ms respectively), both patients were asymptomatic with normalization of LV function and without a change in the residual gradient a cross the aortic valve.