Association of coronary risk factors with progression of valvular aortic stenosis in older persons

Multiple linear regression analysis in the present study showed that significant independent risk factors for progression of valvular AS in older persons were cigarette smoking (p = 0.0001) and hypercholesterolemia (p = 0.0001), with diabetes mellitus showing borderline significance (p = 0.0581). Palta et al ¹⁶ recently reported that cigarette smoking and hypercholesterolemia accelerate the progression of AS. Their data and our data suggest that a study should be performed to investigate the effect of lowering serum low-density lipoprotein cholesterol on the rate of progression of valvular AS.