What TAVR availability has meant for patients with severe aortic stenosis
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The introduction and widespread acceptance of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) has led to a significant boost in survival among patients with severe aortic stenosis (AS), according to new findings published in the American Journal of Cardiology.
Countless studies have already assessed the effectiveness of TAVR for treating severe AS. However, the study’s authors wrote, it’s still unclear how TAVR has impacted real-world patient care for all severe AS patients. The group tracked more than 3,500 severe AS patients who received care at a single hospital from November 2001 to April 2016. Patients treated before 2008, when that hospital first started performing TAVR, were compared with patients treated in 2008 and beyond.
Overall, the authors found, patients survived much longer in the TAVR era than in the pre-TAVR era. For patients younger than 65 years old, mortality was roughly the same between the two patient groups. However, median survival took a significant leap in the TAVR era compared to the pre-TAVR era for all older age groups.
Also, as one might expect, the percentage of severe AS patients undergoing surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) dropped considerably once TAVR was introduced.
In addition, the authors noted, both TAVR and SAVR patients had “significantly better survival compared to medically managed patients.”
“These results are reaffirming and suggest that clinicians are using [TAVR] in ways that benefit large populations, consistent with the previously performed randomized controlled trials,” wrote lead author Ariel Chao, MPH, of the department of biostatistics at Yale School of Public Health, and colleagues.
Read the full analysis here.
Michael has more than 18 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.