Gastrointestinal Angiodysplasia and Aortic Stenosis

Abstract

For unknown reasons, bleeding from gastrointestinal angiodysplasia in patients with severe aortic stenosis (Heyde's syndrome¹) usually ceases after aortic-valve replacement.² We have proposed that this bleeding disorder may be explained by acquired type IIA von Willebrand's syndrome,³ which is a deficiency of high-molecular-weight multimers of von Willebrand factor associated with aortic stenosis. We now report two cases of Heyde's syndrome in which abnormal von Willebrand factor–multimer profiles normalized after aortic-valve replacement.