Long-term outcomes with balloon-expandable and self-expandable prostheses in patients undergoing transfemoral transcatheter aortic valve implantation for severe aortic stenosis.

Background: Data on long-term outcomes in patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is scarce.

Methods: We investigated long term outcomes of consecutive patients undergoing TAVI with balloon- and self-expandable bioprostheses (Edwards SAPIEN (ESV), Edwards Lifesciences Inc., Irvine, CA, USA; Medtronic Corevalve system (MCS), Medtronic Inc., Minneapolis, MN, USA).

Results: Among 628 patients (mean age 82.4 ± 5.8 years, 55% female), 489 (77.8%) underwent transfemoral TAVI. 309 (63.2%) patients received a MCS prosthesis, whereas 180 (36.8%) patients were treated with an ESV prosthesis. The median duration of follow-up amounted to 5.2 years (range 3.4-8.3 years). All-cause mortality did not differ between the two groups (MCS 46.9%, ESV 53.4%, CI 95%: RR 1.21 [0.93-1.57], P = 0.15), whereas cardiac mortality was higher in the ESV cohort after 5 years of follow-up (MCS 35.1%, ESV 45.4%, CI 95%: RR 1.37 [1.01-1.86], P = 0.04). Structural valve deterioration, which was on average diagnosed 41.9 months (range 18-60 months) after TAVI, occurred in 8 cases (1.6%), resulting in one repeat intervention.

Conclusions: While half of all patients died within 5 years after TAVI with no significant differences in all-cause mortality, structural valve deterioration was documented in <2% of cases.