Incidence and impact of prosthesis-patient mismatch following transcatheter aortic valve implantation.

INTRODUCTION: The implications of prosthesis-patient mismatch (PPM) in the context of transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) are still controversial. The objective of our study was thus to investigate the incidence and prognostic impact of PPM after TAVI.

METHODS: Our analysis included 613 TAVI patients in whom the indexed effective orifice area (iEOA) after TAVI was obtained in vivo using echocardiography. Prosthesis sizing was guided by pre-procedural ECG-gated computed tomography. Based on VARC-2 established criteria for significant PPM (iEOA ≤ 0.85 cm2 /m2 in the setting of BMI < 30 kg/m2 and iEOA ≤ 0.7 cm2 /m2 in the context of BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2 ), patients were attributed to a "No PPM" or a "PPM" group.

RESULTS: We observed PPM after TAVI in 192 patients (31.3%) with moderate PPM being present in 150 subjects (24.5%) and severe PPM in 42 patients (6.9%). EuroSCORE, impaired LV function, and male gender were associated with PPM status. The "No PPM" group was characterized by higher rates of self-expandable valves (40.4% vs. 25.5%, p < 0.001). In a multivariate analysis age > 81.2 years, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, peripheral artery disease, impaired LV function, acute kidney failure stage 3 as well as periprocedural myocardial infarction emerged as independent risk predictors for all-cause mortality after TAVI. After a median follow-up of 12.2 months PPM failed to show a significant association with overall survival (79.2% vs. 79.3%, p = 0.692).

CONCLUSIONS: The incidence of PPM after TAVI seems to be substantially lower than after SAVR. PPM was less common using self-expandable valves. In our analysis, patients with PPM following TAVI did not have higher rates of all-cause mortality.