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.