Baseline Patient Characteristics
A total of 236 patients with mild or moderate AS were included in this analysis. The BAV cohort consisted of 59 patients, of which 40 had an initial AS severity of mild (68%) and 19 patients had moderate initial severity (32%). The TAV cohort consisted of 177 patients, matched by initial severity with our BAV cohort (120 mild AS, 57 moderate AS). Of the 236 patients, 136 (58%) were male and 199 (84%) were Caucasian, without significant differences in sex and race between BAV and TAV cohorts. The BAV cohort was significantly younger than the TAV cohort (59 years vs. 78 years, p<.001) and had a longer median echocardiography follow-up period (3.17 years vs. 2.40 years, p=0.02). The BAV cohort also had lower baseline prevalence of hypertension (69% vs. 82%, p=0.043) and congestive heart failure (6.8% vs. 28%, p<0.001) than the TAV cohort. There were no significant differences between the two groups in terms of tobacco use, body mass index, pulmonary disease, chronic kidney disease, or peripheral vascular disease. Table 1 summarizes these demographics and comorbidities.
Baseline hemodynamics were similar between BAV and TAV groups (Table 2 ). Among all patients, mean gradient was 17.0 (IQR 13.0-21.1) mmHg, peak velocity was 2.8 (IQR 2.5-3.1) m/s, and indexed aortic valve area was 0.71 (IQR 0.59-0.86) cm2/m2.