New frontiers in aortic therapy: focus on current trials and devices in transcatheter aortic valve replacement.

The first decade of clinical experience with transcatheter aortic valve replacement since 2002 saw the development of 2 main valve systems, namely the Edwards Sapien balloon-expandable valve series and the Medtronic self-expanding CoreValve. These 2 valve platforms now have achieved commercial approval and application worldwide in patients with severe aortic stenosis whose perioperative risk for surgical intervention is high or extreme. In the second decade of transcatheter aortic valve replacement, clinical experience and refinements in valve design have resulted in clinical drift towards lower patient risk cohorts.

Postoperative amnesia in a patient undergoing general anesthesia for electro-physiologic (EP) catheter ablation of an irritable atrial focus.

This case report describes the anesthetic management of a 67-year-old who underwent a catheter based pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) of long-standing, persistent atrial fibrillation. When the patient awoke from the 6.5 hour procedure, he was found to have a transient retrograde and anterograde amnesia that persisted for 18-24 hours postoperatively.

Perioperative conduction disturbances after transcatheter aortic valve replacement.

Cardiac conduction disturbances after transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) are common and important. The risk factors and outcome effects of atrial fibrillation after TAVR recently have been appreciated. The paucity of clinical trials has resulted in the absence of clinical guidelines for the management of this important arrhythmia in this high-risk patient population.