SAVR following TAVR ‘may present extra risks’

Quandary over best approach for younger patients who might need more than one valve replacement
Reuters Health Staff writer
aortic valve replacement surgery

Patients undergoing surgical aortic-valve replacement (SAVR) following problems with an initial transcatheter valve replacement (TAVR) appear to have particularly poor outcomes, according to a retrospective analysis.

Out of about 40,000 TAVR procedures in the Society of Thoracic Surgeons Adult Cardiac Surgery Database, the researchers identified 123 patients with a history of prior TAVR who underwent SAVR from  2011-2015.

“This dataset is a unique mix of patients who were considered either intermediate or high-risk at the time of the initial TAVR procedure, but still low enough risk that they were candidates for a SAVR at the time of TAVR failure,” they write.

Median time to reoperation was 2.5 months, the authors write in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions.