Survival and quality of life after transcatheter aortic valve implantation relative to the general population

BACKGROUND: Little is known about survival and quality of life (QoL) of patients treated by transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) compared to the age- and sex-matched general population. In this study we compared subgroups of the National Heart Registration TAVI cohort to the Dutch age- and sex-matched population at the level of survival and QoL. METHODS AND RESULTS: From the Netherlands Heart Registration (NHR) the TAVI cohort (5489 patients, period 2013–2017) was extracted. These data were compared to the national Dutch population data collected from the national statistics office, Statistics Netherlands (CBS). Subgroups were defined according to sex and age (<65, 65–80 and >80). For QoL analyses the age subgroups <65, 65–75 and >75 were used. Long term survival was significantly higher in the general population compared to the TAVI population. Elderly TAVI patients (>80 years) had the same survival as the age-matched general population (46vs43% at 5 years, respectively). Survival in women was better than in men in both the general population and the TAVI cohort. Patients treated by TAVI, aged 65 years and older had a comparable QoL to that of the general population. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that TAVI patients aged 80 years and older have a similar long-term survival as an age-matched general population. However, because of lower survival in under 80 TAVI patients, the overall long term survival of all TAVI patients is worse than that of the general population in the Netherlands. This study also suggests that QoL after TAVI treatment is comparable to QoL in the general population.