Background: TAVI indications expand not only to low-risk patients but also to patients with a more complex anatomy and comorbidities. Transfemoral retrograde access is recognized as the first preferred approach according to the current guidelines. However, this approach is not suitable in up to 10-15% of patients, for whom an alternative non-femoral access route is required.
Case presentation: An 83-year-old male patient with known aortic isthmus stenosis presented with severe symptomatic aortic stenosis. Computed tomography revealed a subtotal isthmus stenosis, directly after left subclavian artery origin, with many collaterals extending toward the axillary and subclavian arteries. Duplex ultrasound verified the proximal diameter of the left brachial artery to be 5.5 mm. A successful surgical cutdown trans-brachial TAVI with an Evolut prosthetic valve with a size of 29 mm was performed. On the fourth postoperative day, the patient was discharged, and the three-month follow-up was uneventful.
Conclusion: In patients with aortic isthmus stenosis, the brachial artery could be a feasible alternative, as a less invasive access site, which can be determined after careful assessment of the vessel diameter. More data are required to evaluate the safety and efficacy of this access route and to achieve more technical improvements to increase operator familiarity with it.
Keywords: aortic isthmus stenosis; aortic valve stenosis; brachial artery; transcatheter aortic valve implantation.