Echo

[Charley699]

My husband recently passed away from heart failure at 55 and I decided to have a checkup on my heart even though I had not been having problems.  I was diagnosed with a mild sclerotic regurgitation. The tricuspid showed trace and the pulmonic showed none.  The LV wall was normal with normal EF.  I had one last week from a new doctor that is driving me crazy.  He is saying that it is severe, but from looking at the old one and new results it looks like he has added on stuff that was not on the other results.  LVEd/LVESd: 4.17/3.11. The old was 3.7/2.4.  Both are in normal values according to the old report.  His is so confusing that you cannot not tell.  The septal wall thickness is 0.73 and the old was 1.0 and the Posterior wall thickness is 0.93, the old 1.0.  He is saying I have a severely dilated thoracic aorta at 5.45 cm.  looking at these values I really doubt it.  I have been on blood pressure medicine and have kept it well regulated since I found out I had this.  I really don't trust this doctor.  He also told me I had really high trigelerides and cholesterol, but my trigelerides were only 78 and cholesterol was 221, which is borderline, and I told them I had drank some milk that morning.  He said that wouldn't matter, if I ate the whole cow, it was high.


This discussion is related to 2-D echo report.

[Ger57]

Hi,
your heart valves are just fine, your LVEd/LVESd seems fine too.
221 for total cholesterol is indeed borderline high.

You aorta diameter is however not good. This is, if measured correctly, indeed severely dilated.
The report does not say where the dilation is located, but even if it is at the ascending part of the aorta, normal range there is 22-36mm.

You need to have this further investigated soon as you might be at risk of  aortic dissection.