NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – One-year survival after transcatheter aortic valves implantation in otherwise inoperable patients is “excellent” according to a new report.

The findings, reported in the July 26th issue of Circulation, come from the Edwards SAPIEN Aortic Bioprosthesis European Outcome (SOURCE) registry.

“Kaplan–Meier 1-year survival for Cohort 1 from the SOURCE Registry shows an improvement compared with historical controls,” report Dr. Martyn Thomas, at St. Thomas’ Hospital, London, and colleagues.

They explain that transcatheter aortic valve implantation was developed as an alternative for patients considered high risk for surgical aortic valve replacement. The Edwards SAPIEN valve was approved in Europe almost 4 years ago, and the registry was established to collect post-marketing data. The current report presents first-year outcomes data on 1038 patients in Cohort 1.

The researchers found that patients who underwent a transapical valve placement had more comorbidities than those whose valve was implanted via the femoral approach. Therefore the two groups cannot be compared directly.

One-year survival was 72.1% among transapical patients and 81.1% for transfemoral patients, the team reports. Among those who survived, 73.5% were in NYHA class I or II at 1 year, whereas at baseline a similar percentage was in class III or IV.

Deaths in the total cohort were due to cardiac causes in 25.1%, noncardiac causes in 49.2% and unknown causes in 25.7%, according to the report. The most prominent factors associated with 1-year mortality were the EuroSCORE risk scale, renal disease, liver disease, and smoking, Dr. Thomas and colleagues report.

They conclude that the results demonstrate that “with new transcatheter aortic techniques, excellent 1-year survival in high-risk and inoperable patients is achievable and provides a benchmark against which future transcatheter aortic valve implantation cohorts and devices can be measured.”

Reference:
One-Year Outcomes of Cohort 1 in the Edwards SAPIEN Aortic Bioprosthesis European Outcome (SOURCE) Registry
Circulation 2011;124:425-433.