[Coronary circulations in patients with valvular aortic stenoses (author's transl)]

This study was done to substantiate the observation that there is a high coincidence of predominant left coronary circulations in patients with valvular aortic stenoses, Between 1973 and 1980, 506 patients, who underwent coronary angiography and ventriculography, were investigated: patients with mitral stenosis (group I; n = 77), mitral regurgitation and combined mitral valve dysfunction (group II; n = 50), aortic regurgitation with or without mitral valve disease (group III; n = 61), pure aortic stenosis (group IV; n = 49) and the combination of aortic stenosis and insufficiency with mitral valve disease group V; n = 69). Patients with coronary heart disease (group 6; n = 200) served as control. Predominant left circulation was present in a comparable frequency in the valve-patient group 1 (8%), group 2 (10%) and group 3 (8%) and with patients with coronary heart disease (7.5%). A distinctly higher frequency was observed in group 4 (33%; p less than 0.001) and in group 5 (19%; p less than 0.01). We conclude that valvular aortic stenosis and predominant left coronary circulation might have the same genetic or developmental background.