Abstract
The evaluation of prognostic factors in infants with critical stenosis of the aortic valve and intact ventricular septum is often misleading due to a complex interaction among lesions in the mitral and aortic valves, and the left ventricular myocardium. The clinical parameters on the left ventricular function, such as ejection fraction and left ventricular end-diastolic volume, are of particular interest as their effects on survival are very controversial. We performed a clinicopathologic analysis of two autopsied cases of this disease. Besides the morphological hallmarks of the aortic and mitral valves, these two cases showed two extreme types of pathology in the left ventricular myocardium, which might have significant impacts on the clinical evaluation of the left ventricular function. Case 1 showed endocardial fibroelastosis associated with abnormal intertrabecular spaces (so-called spongy myocardium), obscuring accurate estimation of the left ventricular end-diastolic volume. Case 2 showed ischemic necrosis of the apical part of the left ventricular myocardium. This infarct was associated with acute and chronic subendocardial ischemia and mild endocardial fibroelastosis. Aggravation of the left ventricular failure could be caused by the recent ischemic insult. The evaluation of the left ventricular function, therefore, should include the evaluation of the morphologic status of the myocardium as regards to whether there is ischemia, endocardial fibroelastosis or hypertrophied trabeculae in addition to stenotic lesions in the aortic and mitral valves.