Healio: Changes in Devices, Procedures Major Driver of Improvement in TAVR Outcomes

Changes in devices and procedural care were the biggest factor in improvements in short-term outcomes for patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve replacement, researchers reported at TCT 2022.

Changes in patient comorbidities, due to TAVR becoming more widely available to lower-risk patients over time, were a major factor in improvements in long-term mortality after TAVR, but changes in devices and procedural care were also a factor, according to an analysis of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons/American College of Cardiology Transcatheter Valve Therapies registry.

“We believe that our findings emphasize the importance of device iterations and non-device procedural factors to short-term mortality and complications of TAVR, and maybe have important implications for future device innovation, particularly as we move to the treatment of other forms of valvular heart disease,” Suzanne V. Arnold, MD, MHA, professor of medicine at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine and clinical scholar at Saint Luke’s Mid-America Heart Institute, said at a press conference.

Arnold and colleagues analyzed 161,196 patients included in the TVT registry who underwent TAVR at 596 U.S. hospitals between 2011 and 2018 to determine the contribution of changes in patient risk and procedure improvements to improved TAVR outcomes over time.

Read the full Healio article: Changes in Devices, Procedures Major Driver of Improvement in TAVR Outcomes