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Figure 1 Survival Under Conservative Management After Diagnosis of Asymptomatic Aortic Regurgitation

Patients are stratified according to quantitative American Society of Echocardiography (QASE) aortic regurgitation (AR) grading. The QASE-severe AR is defined as regurgitant volume 60 ml/beat or effective regurgitant orifice (ERO) 30 mm² (yellow line), QASE-mild AR as regurgitant volume <30 ml/beat and ERO <10 mm² (brown line), and QASE-moderate AR (dotted orange line) as larger than mild (regurgitant volume 30 ml/beat or ERO 10 mm²), but not reaching QASE-severe criteria. The 5- and 10-year survival rates ± SE are indicated. Note the lower survival with QASE-severe AR, whereas QASE-moderate AR displays survival similar to QASE-mild AR up to 5 years after diagnosis, with higher mortality thereafter.