Objectives: The ideal strategy for the treatment of severe aortic valve stenosis in patients of varying risk categories has become a debated topic in the last years: should the transcatheter or surgical approach be adopted? The aim of this study was to evaluate the outcomes of low-, intermediate-, high- and very high-risk patients undergoing sutureless, rapid deployment aortic valve replacement.
Methods: From 2007 to 2017, data on a total of 3651 patients were collected from the Sutureless and Rapid Deployment Aortic Valve Replacement International Registry (SURD-IR). Of these, 2057 patients who underwent primary isolated aortic valve replacement were considered for this analysis and classified as being at low (EuroSCORE <5; n = 500), intermediate (EuroSCORE 5-10; n = 901), high (EuroSCORE 11-20; n = 500) and very high (EuroSCORE >20; n = 156) preoperative risk.
Results: Overall, a less invasive approach was used in 74.1% of patients and represented the most frequent (>50%) approach in all risk categories. The Perceval prosthesis was used more frequently than other devices, especially in patients at high and very high risk. Hospital mortality was 1.6%, 0.8%, 1.9% and 2.7% in low-, intermediate-, high- and very high-risk patients, respectively, with no significant differences among subgroups. Similarly, postoperative complication rates were similar across the different risk categories.
Conclusions: Surgical aortic valve replacement using sutureless, rapid deployment biological valve prostheses is associated with excellent results and represents a safe and effective treatment option for patients with severe aortic valve stenosis. This seems to be particularly true in patients with a higher risk profile.
Keywords: Aortic valve replacement; Aortic valve stenosis; Rapid deployment aortic valve; Sutureless aortic valve.
© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery. All rights reserved.