TY - JOUR T1 - 122 Endothelial loss as a cause of impaired myocardial perfusion reserve in severe aortic stenosis JF - Heart JO - Heart SP - A100 LP - A100 DO - 10.1136/heartjnl-2019-BCS.119 VL - 105 IS - Suppl 6 AU - Kenneth Chan AU - Betty Raman AU - Joseph Westaby AU - Sairia Dass AU - Mairo Petrou AU - Rana Sayeed AU - Houman Ashrafian AU - Saul Myerson AU - Theodoros Karamitsos AU - Mary Sheppard AU - Stefan Neubauer AU - Masliza Mahmod Y1 - 2019/05/01 UR - http://heart.bmj.com/content/105/Suppl_6/A100.2.abstract N2 - Introduction Impaired myocardial perfusion reserve occurs in pressure overload hypertrophy such as in severe aortic stenosis (AS) despite unobstructed epicardial coronaries. However the pathological mechanisms underlying this are poorly understood. We sought to assess myocardial perfusion reserve in severe AS by stress perfusion cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR), and examine the findings in relation to the histological evidence of vascular changes in the myocardium.Methods Fourteen patients with severe AS and unobstructed epicardial coronaries underwent adenosine stress perfusion CMR before and 6 months after surgical aortic valve replacement (AVR). Myocardial biopsies were obtained during AVR and stained using CD31+ for endothelium, smooth muscle actin (SMA) for smooth muscle, and picrosirius red for fibrosis. Nine age- and sex- matched post-mortem myocardial samples served as histological controls.Results When compared to controls, the myocardium of patients with severe AS had reduced vessel density, total quantity of SMA+ve and CD31+ve, in addition to the expected increase in fibrosis. (figure 1) There was absence of CD31+ve endothelium in SMA+ve arterioles, indicating endothelial loss. Importantly, patients with an aortic valve area (AVA) ≤0.8cm2 had greater endothelial loss compared to those with an AVA >0.8 and ≤1.0cm2 (1.34±0.44% vs 2.84±1.03%, p=0.006), and endothelial loss also correlated with myocardial perfusion reserve index (MPRI), r=0.66, p=0.019. MPRI improved significantly post AVR (from 0.95±0.17 to 1.50±0.43, p=0.018).Abstract 122 Figure 1 (A) Reduction in quantity of endothelium (CD31) and smooth muscle actin (SMA) in severe aortic stenosis, (B) reduction in positively stained vessel in severe aortic stenosisConclusion In severe AS, there is microvascular rarefaction and loss of endothelium, which is more pronounced in patients with the most severe aortic valve narrowing. This appears to be an underlying mechanism for reduced myocardial perfusion reserve, which may be reversible post AVR.Conflict of Interest None ER -