A study found that “people who underwent a minimally invasive procedure to have their heart’s aortic valve replaced had similar health outcomes years after treatment as people who had surgery.”
Aortic valve disease “affects about 2% of the U.S. population, and risk rises with age.” The trial that investigators reported on involved “1,000 patients at 71 healthcare locations. Study participants had a severe form of aortic valve stenosis, a condition in which the heart’s aortic valve becomes so narrow and stiff that it cannot open fully to allow blood to pass through.”
Participants in the trial were “randomly chosen to undergo either open-heart surgery or a procedure called a transcatheter aortic valve replacement, also known as TAVR. … During TAVR, an interventional cardiologist threads a catheter through an artery to reach the heart and replace the diseased valve. Previous randomized controlled trials, including an earlier version of PARTNER 3, reported similar outcomes with TAVR and surgery five years after treatment in people with low to high risk for surgical complications.”
Seven years after treatment, “composite rates of death, stroke or rehospitalization related to treatment were 34.6% for TAVR (496 people) and 37.2% for surgery (454 people), a difference that was not statistically significant. The rates of failure for the bioprosthetic valve were similar: 6.9% for TAVR and 7.3% for surgery. In addition, patients in both groups reported comparable quality of life outcomes.”
