Cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in patients with aortic valve sclerosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Aims: The association between aortic valve sclerosis (AVSc) and cardiovascular (CV) events is not consistent among different studies. We have performed a meta-analysis evaluating the association between AVSc and fatal and/or non-fatal CV and cerebrovascular events. Methods and results: A systematic search was performed in the electronic databases (PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, EMBASE). Studies evaluating coronary artery disease (CAD), stroke and CV mortality in AVSc patients and controls were included. Differences among cases and controls were expressed as Odds Ratio (OR) with pertinent 95% Confidence Intervals (CI). Thirty-one studies on 10,537 AVSc patients and 25,005 controls were included in the final analysis. The absolute risk of CAD was 45.8% (95% CI: 32.9–59.3) in AVSc patients and 29.4% (95% CI: 21.8–38.5) in controls with an OR of 2.02 (95% CI: 1.67–2.44) and an attributable risk of 35.8%. Moreover, stroke was reported in 11.8% (95% CI: 4.4–27.7) of AVSc patients and 7.9% (95% CI: 2.5–22.7) of controls (OR: 1.41, 95% CI: 1.16–1.71) with an attributable risk of 33.0%. CV mortality was 6.2% (95% CI: 2.7–13.5) in AVSc patients and 2.0% (95% CI: 0.5–7.9) in controls (OR: 2.70, 95% CI: 1.45–5.01), with an attributable risk of 67.7%. Results were confirmed when pooling together ORs for CAD, stroke and CV mortality obtained by means of multivariate analysis. Conclusions: AVSc is associated with CAD, stroke and CV mortality. Taken together, these data suggest that patients with AVSc may benefit from a stricter CV risk monitoring and that AVSc screening may be included in the frame of CV risk stratification protocols.