Severe Aortic Stenosis in Dialysis Patients.

BACKGROUND: Characteristics and prognosis of hemodialysis patients with severe aortic stenosis have not yet been well defined.

METHODS AND RESULTS: The CURRENT AS (contemporary outcomes after surgery and medical treatment in patients with severe aortic stenosis) registry, a Japanese multicenter registry, enrolled 3815 consecutive patients with severe aortic stenosis. There were 405 hemodialysis patients (initial aortic valve replacement [AVR] group: N=135 [33.3%], and conservative group: N=270) and 3410 nonhemodialysis patients (initial AVR group: N=1062 [31.1%], and conservative group: N=2348). The median follow-up duration after the index echocardiography was 1361 days, with 90% follow-up rate at 2 years. The cumulative 5-year incidence of all-cause death was significantly higher in hemodialysis patients than in nonhemodialysis patients in both the entire cohort (71% versus 40%, P <0.001) and in the initial AVR group (63.2% versus 17.9%, P <0.001). Among hemodialysis patients, the initial AVR group as compared with the conservative group was associated with significantly lower cumulative 5-year incidences of all-cause death (60.6% versus 75.5%, P <0.001) and sudden death (10.2% versus 31.7%, P <0.001). Nevertheless, the rate of aortic valve procedure-related death, which predominantly occurred within 6 months of the AVR procedure, was markedly higher in the hemodialysis patients than in the nonhemodialysis patients (21.2% and 2.3%, P <0.001).

CONCLUSIONS: Among hemodialysis patients with severe aortic stenosis, the initial AVR strategy as compared with the conservative strategy was associated with significantly lower long-term mortality risk, particularly the risk for sudden death, although the effect size for the survival benefit of the initial AVR strategy was smaller than that in the nonhemodialysis patients.