Courtesy of Dr. Carlos Fava. TAVR has matured over time and has advanced onto low risk patients, but one of its greatest challenges continues to be bicuspid valve patients. These represent between 1% and 2% of the population and over 20% of young adults requiring surgical valve replacement (SAVR). The study looked at 27,086 patients<a href="https://solaci.org/en/2020/08/28/good-evolution-of-bicuspid-valves-with-evolute-or-evolute-pro/" title="Read more" >...</a>
Three generations of self-expanding valves, three different prognoses for our patients. Design improvements and better materials in self-expanding, supra-annular aortic valves, and their better results, have allowed for the expansion of the indication for transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). Particularly, the addition of a pericardial skirt improves annular sealing and results in a significantly low<a href="https://solaci.org/en/2020/04/08/technological-improvements-in-valves-translate-into-clinical-results/" title="Read more" >...</a>
Courtesy of Dr. Carlos Fava. There a few treatment options for tricuspid valve disease. It is practically limited to diuretics and surgery, is associated to high mortality and, generally, mitral regurgitation. Developing the “edge-to-edge” strategy with MitraClip has been shown beneficial and, at present, there are studies that claim this technique could be greatly beneficial<a href="https://solaci.org/en/2020/03/10/treating-both-atrial-valves-improves-survival/" title="Read more" >...</a>
After the recent announcement by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) green-lighting transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) in patients across the whole spectrum, and given the advancements regarding devices already in the market (such as MitraClip) and a variety of pulmonary valves, there is only one territory left to conquer: the long forgotten tricuspid<a href="https://solaci.org/en/2019/08/30/physiological-and-clinical-changes-after-tricuspid-repair/" title="Read more" >...</a>
Reducing tricuspid regurgitation with transcatheter valve repair is associated to improved liver function, which is often ignored by many cardiologists. This is especially true in cases with deteriorated liver function prior valve repair. Instead, kidney function did not show any changes. Transcatheter tricuspid valve repair seems attractive especially in patients with liver failure. Edge to<a href="https://solaci.org/en/2019/08/27/impact-of-edge-to-edge-transcatheter-tricuspid-valve-repair/" title="Read more" >...</a>
The frequency of bicuspid aortic valves (BcAV) are around 1%, but in 60+ patients it is associated to severe aortic stenosis. Even though surgery is the standard treatment, TAVR is the “off label” indication in high risk patients. BcAV presents differences with tricuspids given that it is more elliptic, has asymmetric calcification and more<a href="https://solaci.org/en/2018/05/02/bicuspid-valves-do-not-increase-mortality-in-tavr/" title="Read more" >...</a>
There is more and more positive evidence that new-generation transcatheter valves, originally designed to treat tricuspid aortic valves, work perfectly fine on bicuspid aortic valves. A comparison of computerized tomography (CT) scans obtained before and after the procedure showed that the most commonly used devices appear to reshape the aortic annulus to the same degree<a href="https://solaci.org/en/2017/10/13/tricuspid-and-bicuspid-valves-present-more-coincidences-than-expected/" title="Read more" >...</a>
Courtesy of Dr. Carlos Fava One of the present challenges of TAVR is bicuspid aortic valve stenosis (AS), since it presents a different distribution and structure, associated to greater and more irregular calcification. There are only small series of devices and their use is still controversial. The study analyzed 561 patients with severe bicuspid<a href="https://solaci.org/en/2017/04/27/bicuspid-aortic-valve-stenosis-still-challenging-for-tavr/" title="Read more" >...</a>
Courtesy of Dr. Agustín Vecchia. Surgery is the treatment of choice for patients with symptomatic aortic insufficiency and/or ventricular dilatation or decreased ventricular function. The broad implementation of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) in patients with aortic stenosis, the emergence of new devices, and the experience acquired by operators have brought this treatment to off-label indications such<a href="https://solaci.org/en/2016/12/13/tavr-in-pure-aortic-insufficiency/" title="Read more" >...</a>
Original title: Comparison of Results of Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation in Patients with Severely Stenotic Bicuspid versus Tricuspid or Non-Bicuspid Valves. Reference: Charis Costopoulos et al. Am J Cardiol. 2014 Jan 31. pii: S0002-9149(14)00554-2. The bicuspid aortic valve (BAV) is the most common congenital cardiac malformation. It occurs in approximately 1% of the general population and often<a href="https://solaci.org/en/2014/03/11/n-4327/" title="Read more" >...</a>