• Francesco Onorati, Paola D'Errigo, Claudio Grossi, Marco Barbanti, Marco Ranucci, Daniel Remo Covello, Stefano Rosato, Alice Maraschini, Gennaro Santoro, Corrado Tamburino, Fulvia Seccareccia, Francesco Santini, Lorenzo Menicanti, and OBSERVANT Research Group.
• Division of Cardiac Surgery, University of Verona Medical School, Verona, Italy. Electronic address: frankono@libero.it.
• J. Thorac. Cardiovasc. Surg.. 2014 Feb 1;147(2):568-75.

ObjectiveDespite demonstration of the superior outcomes of transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) versus optimal medical therapy for severe left ventricular systolic dysfunction, studies comparing TAVI and surgical aortic valve replacement (AVR) in this high-risk group have been lacking.MethodsWe performed propensity matching for age, gender, baseline comorbidities, previous interventions, priority at hospital admission, frailty score, New York Heart Association class, EuroSCORE, and associated cardiac diseases. Next, the 30-day mortality and procedure-related morbidity of 162 patients (81 TAVI vs 81 AVR) with severe left ventricular systolic dysfunction (ejection fraction ≤ 35%) were analyzed at the Italian National Institute of Health.ResultsThe 30-day mortality was comparable (P = .37) between the 2 groups. The incidence of periprocedural acute myocardial infarction (P = .55), low output state (P = .27), stroke (P = .36), and renal dysfunction (peak creatinine level, P = .57) was also similar between the 2 groups. TAVI resulted in significantly greater postprocedural permanent pacemaker implantation (P = .01) and AVR in more periprocedural transfusions (P < .01) despite a similar transfusion rate per patient (2.8 ± 3.7 for TAVI vs 4.4 ± 3.8 for AVR; P = .08). The postprocedural intensive care unit stay (median, 2 days after TAVI vs 3 days after AVR; P = .34), intermediate care unit stay (median, 0 days after both TAVI and AVR; P = .94), and hospitalization (median, 11 days after TAVI vs 14 days after AVR; P = .51) were comparable.ConclusionsIn patients with severe left ventricular systolic dysfunction, both TAVI and AVR are valid treatment options, with comparable hospital mortality and periprocedural morbidity. Comparisons of the mid- to long-term outcomes are mandatory.Copyright © 2014 The American Association for Thoracic Surgery. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

71 keywords...

hide…