Autophagy as mechanism for cell death in degenerative aortic valve disease - An underestimated phenomenon in cardiovascular diseases

Once degenerative aortic valve disease becomes symptomatic, valve replacement is for prognostic and symptomatic reasons. In elderly patients, symptoms of degenerative aortic valve can often be doubtful. Therefore it is difficult but important to distinguish patients who need surgery from those who do not. Estimation of the rate of the progression of this disease can be helpful herein because one needs to bear in mind that aortic valve degeneration is an active process, which can influence the rate of progression. Recently, autophagy was discovered as a mechanism of cell death in different cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis, aortic valve degeneration, heart failure and at regions around heart infarctions. Thus understanding autophagy in all its details can be helpful to contribute insights into the cell death machinery of cardiovascular diseases. This could open ways for inhibition of cell death in cardiovascular disease and possibly define targets for future drug design.