Background: To evaluate the trends in complication rates following transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) procedures according to the type of vascular approach (endovascular vs. transapical) in a large US population sample.
Methods: The National Inpatient Sample (NIS) was queried for all patients diagnosed with aortic stenosis who underwent a TAVR procedure in the United States during the years 2012-2016. Outcomes assessed were peri-procedural mortality, cardiac, and non-cardiac complications. Hospitalization outcomes were modeled using logistic regression for binary outcomes and generalized linear models for continuous outcomes.
Results: There were 97,320 endovascular-TAVR patients and 11,140 transapical-TAVR patients. The mean age was 80.8 years (standard error of the mean: ± 0.1). Most patients were males (53.7%) and Caucasian (87.1%). On multivariate analysis, after adjusting for age, gender, comorbidities, as well as hospital factors, patients with the transapical approach had a higher risk for mortality and adverse outcomes. Among the endovascular-TAVR group, national trends showed a diminishing incidence of procedural mortality (incidence rate ratio [IRR] 0.77; 95% CI: 0.72-0.84, p < 0.001), stroke (IRR 0.80; 95% CI: 0.73-0.87, p < 0.001), and all secondary outcomes, but no significant change in myocardial infarction. In contrast, most transapical-TAVR related procedural complications remained unchanged over time, except for a significant decrease in stroke, acute respiratory failure and need for pacemaker insertion.
Conclusion: National trends show a steady increase in the number of endovascular-TAVR procedures with a concurrent decrease in procedural complications.
Keywords: Aortic stenosis; Endovascular access; Endovascular-TAVR; TA-TAVR; TAVR; Transapical access; Transapical-TAVR; Transcatheter aortic valve replacement.
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