Gastrointestinal Angiodysplasia in Patients with Severe Aortic Stenosis: The Endoscopic Features of Heyde’s Syndrome

Abstract

<b><i>Introduction:</i></b> Aortic stenosis (AS) is sometimes associated with gastrointestinal bleeding, and this phenomenon is known as Heyde’s syndrome. Such bleeding is most often considered to originate from gastrointestinal angiodysplasias, but the frequency and endoscopic features of such bleeding remain unclear. This study aimed to determine the frequency and endoscopic features of gastrointestinal angiodysplasia in patients with severe AS. <b><i>Patients and Methods:</i></b> In this multicenter, retrospective study, we evaluated consecutive patients who underwent transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) with severe AS from May 2016 to December 2019. We extracted the data on the clinicopathological features according to the status of anemia, the proportion of patients who underwent gastrointestinal endoscopic examinations and demonstrated gastrointestinal angiodysplasia, and identified the endoscopic features associated with such patients. <b><i>Results:</i></b> In 325 patients, the rates of moderate/severe anemia (hemoglobin < 11 g/dL) were 52%. Regarding medicine, there were no significant differences between the patients with and without moderate/severe anemia. Patients were examined by esophagogastroduodenoscopy (21%), colonoscopy (12%), and balloon-assisted enteroscopy or small bowel capsule endoscopy (1.5%). Patients with moderate/severe anemia had significantly more angiodysplasia (38.3% vs. 7.7%; <i>p</i> < 0.0001) and active bleeding (23.4% vs. 0%; <i>p</i> < 0.01). Angiodysplasia was detected in 21 patients (stomach, <i>n</i> = 9; small intestine, <i>n</i> = 5, and colon, <i>n</i> = 10). <b><i>Conclusions:</i></b> The results suggest, for the first time, that patients with severe AS who underwent TAVI and moderate/severe anemia frequently had gastrointestinal angiodysplasia and active bleeding throughout the entire gastrointestinal tract.

Mitral regurgitation is associated with similar loss of von Willebrand factor large multimers but lower frequency of anemia compared with aortic stenosis

“…Another previous study showed that 22.5% of patients with severe AS underwent endoscopic examinations in a clinical setting. Of those, 28.8% had angiodysplasia, 13.4% in upper gastrointestinal endoscopy, 71.4% in enteroscopy, and 26.3% in lower gastrointestinal endoscopy [ 28 ]. In this current study, 27.4% of MR patients underwent endoscopic examination and only 8.7% of patients had angiodysplasia, including 4.8% and 7.7% of patients in the stomach and colon, respectively.…”