Aortic valve disease is diagnosed with the help of a physical examination. It can be picked up in its asymptomatic stage when an ejection systolic murmur is heard classically radiating to the carotid artery with a crescendo decrescendo manner best heard over the left sternal edge. Patients can present with symptoms and subsequently found to have a systolic murmur present. Your doctor will listen to your heart with a stethoscope for unusual sounds or a heart murmur before recommending further diagnostic tests, such as an echocardiogram or cardiac catheterisation.Transthoracic echocardiogram confirms the presence of aortic stenosis and assesses the severity as well as underlying cause of aortic stenosis. If the diagnosis is in doubt, invasive measurement of the aortic valve gradient can be measured with cardiac catheterisation.
