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World J Cardiol. Feb 26, 2019; 11(2): 71-83
Published online Feb 26, 2019. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v11.i2.71
Heart valve disease in elderly
Carlo Rostagno
Carlo Rostagno, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Florence, Florence 50134, Italy
Author contributions: Rostagno C solely contributed to this paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No potential conflicts of interest. No financial support.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Carlo Rostagno, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Florence, Viale Morgagni 85, Firenze 50134, Italy. carlo.rostagno@unifi.it
Telephone: +39-55-7948063 Fax: +39-55-7947587
Received: December 18, 2018
Peer-review started: December 20, 2018
First decision: December 30, 2018
Revised: January 13, 2019
Accepted: January 26, 2019
Article in press: January 26, 2019
Published online: February 26, 2019
Processing time: 69 Days and 8.2 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Severe heart valve diseases are not uncommon in the elderly and often treatment may be challenging due to high risks related both to relevant comorbidities and the frailty condition of elderly patients. Although surgery is still the first choice for most conditions, interventional strategies are emerging as a valid alternative both in high and intermediate risk patients. Careful evaluation is needed for each individual patient in order to establish a more appropriate strategy considering that the impact on the quality of life may be more relevant in this population than the effects on survival, which is already limited by decreased life expectancy related to ageing.