Amyloidosis patients can safely undergo TAVR

Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) patients presenting with amyloidosis do not face a heightened risk of adverse short-term outcomes, according to new findings published in the American Journal of Cardiology.[1]

The study’s authors explored data from the Nationwide Readmissions Database, focusing on more than 280,000 patients who underwent TAVR from 2012 to 2019. Overall, just 0.1% of those patients presented with amyloidosis. These patients were more likely to have chronic kidney disease, but less likely to have a history of hypertension, diabetes or myocardial infarction. The mean age of the amyloidosis group was 78.9 years old, slightly lower than the mean age of the entire cohort, and 71% of those patients were men.

Overall, researchers found, amyloidosis was not associated with a significantly increased risk of in-hospital mortality or 30-day readmission after TAVR. The rates of acute kidney injury requiring hemodialysis, permanent pacemaker implantation and stroke after TAVR were similar between the two groups.

“Although further studies are needed to assess the effects of concomitant amyloidosis on a long-term prognosis after TAVR, the presence of amyloidosis was not significantly associated with short-term adverse outcomes after TAVR in this large cohort,” wrote Tadao Aikawa, MD, PhD, a cardiologist at Hokkaido Cardiovascular Hospital in Japan, and colleagues.