The silent killer presenting as pulmonary valve stenosis

Chronic Thrombo-Embolic Pulmonary Disease (CTEPD) is usually a silent disease representing a small group of patients who at some stage had suffered a thrombo-embolic event in which the individual may or may not have been aware of. It is estimated that this syndrome develops in approximately 3.8% of patients having suffered an acute Pulmonary Embolus (PE) thus representing a pool of patients estimated in the literature to be in the vicinity of 19,000 [1] It has further been documented that this condition is seriously underdiagnosed and is thought to represent in excess of 100,000 individuals in the United States with CTEPD which potentially could be “cured”.