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ECHONOMY
Tools for Echocardiographic Calculations

Muhamed Saric, MD, PhD
New York University
 

Aortic Cusps

Purpose

To provide an overview of the aortic valve types based on the number of valve cusps.

Types of Aortic Valve

 

 

Unicuspid

Bicuspid

Tricuspid

Quadricuspid

Number of cusps

1

2

3

4

Prevalence (%)

0.02%

1-2%

Normal

0.008 - 0.013%

Per 10,000

2

100-200

 

0.8 - 1.3

Primary complication

Aortic stenosis

Aortic stenosis or regurgitation

 

Aortic regurgitation

Anatomic features

Usually unicommissural

Raphe between RCC + LCC = 80% of cases; RCC + NCC = 20% of cases

 

Cusps are usually of unequal size


RCC, right coronary cusp; LCC, left coronary cusp; NCC, noncoronary cusp

References

Novaro GM, Mishra M, Griffin BP. Incidence and echocardiographic features of congenital unicuspid aortic valve in an adult population. J Heart Valve Dis. 2003;12:674–678.

Roberts WC. The congenitally bicuspid aortic valve: a study of 85 autopsy cases. Am J Cardiol. 1970;26:72–83.

Tutarel O. The quadricuspid aortic valve: a comprehensive review. J Heart Valve Dis. 2004;13:534–537.

Quadricuspid aortic valve: Imaging findings on multidetector helical CT with echocardiographic correlation. Jacobs JE, Srichai M, Kim D, Hecht E, Kronzon I.
J Comput Assist Tomogr. 2006 Jul-Aug;30(4):569-71.

Patel, R.J., Patel, J.N., Zakir, R.M., Dabu, L., and Saric M. Quadricuspid aortic valve with four equal cusps in a quinquagenarian. Am J Geriatr Cardiol 2005;14(6):333-4.

Feliciano E, Steinberg E, Kronzon I. Images in cardiovascular medicine: quadricuspid aortic valve. Circulation. 1998 Jan 6-13;97(1):113.