The Prognosis of Elderly Patients with Aortic Stenosis after Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement

OBJECTIVE: Aortic stenosis (AS) is common among elderly patients. Since transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) is a less invasive procedure than surgical aortic valve replacement for symptomatic severe AS, super-elderly patients have tended to undergo TAVR. We retrospectively investigated the post-TAVR outcome in super-elderly patients with severe AS. METHODS: This analysis included 433 patients who underwent TAVR in the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics from 2012 to 2017. Post-TAVR mortality, complications in-hospital, rehospitalization, the New York Heart Association (NYHA) functional class and echocardiographic parameters were compared between patients <85 years old (n = 290) and ≥85 years old (n = 143). RESULTS: The patients ≥85 years old less frequently had a history of coronary artery disease (73.1% vs. 62.2%, p=0.026) and hypertension (87.2% vs. 77.6%, p=0.012) than younger patients. Furthermore, the patients ≥85 years old had moderate-severe mitral regurgitation more frequently (19.3% vs. 28.7%, p=0.037) at baseline than younger patients. There was no significant difference in in-hospital outcomes between the age groups. The 30-day mortality was worse in patients ≥85 years old than in younger ones (0.7% vs. 3.5%, p=0.042). While there was no significant difference in the long-term mortality between the 2 groups, the estimated 1-year mortality from Kaplan-Meier curves were 9.6% in patients <85 years old and 14.9% in patients ≥85 years old. The rate of in-hospital complications, rehospitalization rate, improvement in the NYHA functional class and echocardiographic parameters were comparable between the two groups. CONCLUSION: The outcomes of super-elderly patients after TAVR were acceptable, suggesting that these patients could benefit from TAVR.