Grant: Early Career Investigator Awards- Circulatory and Respiratory Health- Researcher

Aortic valve stenosis is the narrowing of the valve between the left ventricle of the heart and the aorta. This narrowing is an obstacle to the ejection of the blood from the heart to the rest of the body. When the disease is severe, the work of the heart is increased and it may fail. Up to now, there is no medical treatment to reverse or even slow down aortic stenosis progression rate and the replacement of the valve by surgery is the only effective treatment. In order to establish adequate medical management, the mecanisms of development of the diseases have to be well known. In aortic stenosis the mechanisms of development have only been studied in men because they were thought be similar in men and women. However, we recently demonstrated that there are differences in the valve lesion according to the sex of the patients. Thus the underlying mechanisms should also be different. The objective of my research program is to study the differences in aortic stenosis between men and women. First, we will look at the mecanisms of development of the disease and study the aortic valve lesions and molecules that are implicated in the development of the lesions. Second, we will evaluate whether the clinical presentation of the disease is similar between men and women, which is probably not the case given the differences in heart response to a stress. Third, we will evaluate the impact of the differences in presentation on the management and treatment provided to men and women, as we believe that aortic stenosis in women is less recognized, and thus women are under-treated. Fourth, we will test the potential of a medication against a molecule that we know is implicated in aortic stenosis development, but was never found to be useful in slowing down aortic stenosis. These negative results are probably due to the fact that studies have been done essentially in men whereas the medication would be more effective in women than in men.