Adult congenital heart disease is a life-long condition that requires appropriate follow-up by experts. Said follow-up is paramount to diagnosing specific and highly variable complications in a timely manner. The recently published European Society of Cardiology guidelines for the management of congenital heart disease calls for a summary of its most important aspects as “ten...
Courtesy of Dr. Carlos Fava. Bicuspid aortic valves are found in approximately 2% of patients and represent the most frequent cause of aortic stenosis in young adults requiring valve replacement. Though TAVR has advanced significantly, this entity has not yet been included in the different randomized studies. At present, we have data from different reports,...
Courtesy of the SBHCI. The 2-year results of the PARTNER 2A trial showed that transcatheter aortic valve implantation has a result similar to that of surgery in patients with aortic stenosis and intermediate surgical risk. We lacked long-term data, both clinical and related to prosthesis function. Now, at TCT 2019, researchers presented the 5-year data for this...
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...
1- Long-Term Foramen Ovale Closure after Cryptogenic Stroke Patent foramen ovale closure is the standard treatment for cryptogenic stroke patients. However, there are is little information on its long-term evolution. Read more 2- Descending Thoracic Aortic Aneurysms: Is There a New Plan A? The last available evidence suggests that open surgery should be the...
Both studies followed beyond 5 years patients with severe aortic stenosis who had undergone transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). Findings included low rates of significant valve degeneration and failure, in both cases. While data on the long-term degeneration of transcatheter-implanted valves are scarce, follow-up from the NOTION trial of low-risk patients and from the UK TAVI...
The new drug-eluting stents (DES) equipped with ultra-thin struts are showing a lower risk of target lesion failure as a result of lower rates of acute myocardial infarction and similar rates of revascularization, according to this meta-analysis soon to be published in Circulation. Such a difference is evidenced at a 1-year follow-up when compared with...
Courtesy of Dr. Carlos Fava. Aortic stenosis with cardiac failure or cardiogenic shock involves high mortality risk at short term. Surgery in these conditions is often unsafe, which leaves us with valvuloplasty, but only as a bridge to some other procedure, seeing as it is effective only for a short time. Few studies have looked into patients undergoing...
Aortic stenosis increases afterload creating hypertrophy as a compensation mechanism to maintain minute volume. This leads to left ventricular diastolic dysfunction (LVDD). More than half of patients presenting aortic stenosis have LVDD and myocardial fibrosis, which is a mortality predictor in surgery. At present, there is contradicting evidence in TAVR. The study looked...
Courtesy of Dr. Carlos Fava. Even though the presence of paravalvular regurgitation (PVR) has been reduced, thank to greater experience and new devices, it is still frequent and has an impact in survival (especially moderate and severe PVR). Recent research has shown that mild PVR also has a negative impact. However, these data were provided...