Surgical aortic valve replacement in very elderly patients aged 80 years and over: evaluation of early clinical outcomes.

Background: An increasing number of very elderly patients aged ≥80 years will require aortic valve replacement (AVR) for severe aortic stenosis (AS). Many are classified as high-risk surgical candidates. Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) has been proposed as an alternative to surgical AVR (SAVR) for high-risk patients.