Accuracy assessment of transthoracic echocardiography in diagnosing left cardiac valve calcification in elderly patients / 中华老年医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the accuracy of transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) for diagnosing left cardiac valve calcification in elderly patients.Methods In this retrospective study,410 elderly patients died in Beijing Hospital from 1982 to 2015 were collected.They all had full pathological cardiac valve examination data in the autopsy examination and full mortem TTE data.They were classified into three groups according to the year of death:group 1982-1995,group 1996-2005 and group 2006-2015,as well as into three groups according to the age of death:group 60-75,group76-90 and group 91-106.Results The sensitivity,specificity,diagnostic coincidence rate,positive likelihood ratio (PLR),negative likelihood ratio (NLR),positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value(NPV) of TTE versus autopsy pathological findings as golden standard for diagnosing left cardiac valve calcification were 88.6％,28.2％,43.7％,1.234,0.405,0.298 and 0.878.Compared with group 1982-1995,the group 1996-2005 and group 2006-2015 showed the sensitivity and PPV of TTE versus golden standard autopsy findings for diagnosing left cardiac valve calcification in the elderly were increased while the specificity,PLR,NLR and NPV were decreased.Compared with group 60-75,the group 76-90 and group 91-106 showed that the sensitivity and PPV of TTE versus golden standard autopsy findings for diagnosing left cardiac valve calcification were increased,while the specificity and diagnostic coincidence rate were decreased.The sensitivity,specificity,diagnostic coincidence rate,PLR,NLR,PPV,NPV of TTE versus golden standard autopsy findings for the diagnosis of aortic valve calcification and mitral valve calcification in the elderly were 88.2％ and 44.0％,30.8％ and 75.3％,42.7％ and 71.5％,1.275 and 1.780,0.382 and 0.744,0.250 and 0.198,0.909 and 0.906,respectively.Conclusions TTE provides high sensitivity for diagnosing left cardiac valve calcification in the elderly,especially for diagnosing the aortic valve calcification,but the specificity is not satisfactory.