At present, interventional therapy for structural heart disease is in a period of vigorous development. Among them, transcatheter aortic valve replacement, as a representative of the interventional treatment of heart valve disease, has made rapid progress, which is a bright spot in the field of cardiovascular disease. The future development of transcatheter tricuspid valve repair/replacement is also promising. With the availability of important clinical evidence, the indications of transcatheter aortic valve replacement have been extended to the full risk range of severe aortic stenosis. More and more data showed that transcatheter mitral and tricuspid valve interventions could effectively alleviate patients’ symptoms and improve their prognosis. Transcatheter valve interventions have developed rapidly and have made tremendous progress in China. This article will review and interpret the important progress in the field of transcatheter valve interventions.
Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) is effective in the treatment of severe symptomatic aortic stenosis and its applicable population is also gradually expanding, but it carries risk of ischemic and bleeding events, which underscores the importance of optimizing adjuvant antithrombotic regimens. The release of the 2022 version of Chinese expert consensus on antithrombotic therapy after transcatheter aortic valve implantation has promoted the standardized and safe development of antithrombotic therapy after TAVR in China. Combined with the latest progress of antithrombotic therapy after TAVR, from emphasizing ischemia and bleeding risk assessment, single-agent antiplatelet therapy for patients without anticoagulation indications, the selection of antithrombotic strategies for patients with other antithrombotic indications, antithrombotic strategy changes in postoperative valve thrombosis and bleeding events, this article interprets this consensus.
Quadricuspid aortic valve (QAV) is a rare congenital heart disease, and its long-term lesion type is mainly reflux. The application of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) in such patients is extremely rare. This article reports a case of an elderly patient with QAV complicated with severe regurgitation and small subvalvular membrane. Through preoperative evaluation and guidance from the cardiac team discussion, a relatively high oversize rate retrievable valve was selected and the TAVR surgery was successfully completed. At the same time, the valve implantation depth was adjusted to cover the subvalvular membrane. After surgery, the patient’s symptoms such as palpitations were significantly improved. No obvious perivalvular leakage or regurgitation was observed. It provides a reference for TAVR surgical plans for such patients.
Mitral regurgitation is the most common heart valvular disease at present. In the past, mitral regurgitation was mainly treated by surgical mitral valve repair or replacement. However, with the progress of transcatheter interventional techniques and instruments in recent years, transcatheter mitral valve interventional therapy has gradually shown its advantages and benefited patients. The purpose of this article is to review the progress of transcatheter mitral valve intervention in this year, and to provide prospects for the future of transcatheter mitral valve treatment.
This article reports a case of transjugular transcatheter tricuspid valve replacement (TTVR) for persistent severe tricuspid regurgitation after transcatheter aortic valve replacement. The patient was an 80 year old female who underwent transcatheter aortic valve replacement at the Department of Cardiology, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, two months before admission. After the surgery, her condition worsened due to unimproved tricuspid regurgitation and right heart failure. After admission, the patient underwent transjugular TTVR under general anesthesia. With the assistance of cardiac ultrasound and X-ray fluoroscopy, an artificial valve was successfully implanted, and tricuspid regurgitation was relieved. The patient’s surgery went smoothly, and the condition improved significantly 25 days after surgery. The patient was discharged 34 days after surgery.
This article reports a 16-year-old patient with severe pulmonary valve regurgitation after corrective surgery for tetralogy of Fallot. The shape of the right ventricular outflow tract to the main pulmonary artery was cone-shaped, which is extremely challenging. After admission, percutaneous pulmonary valve replacement with self-expanding valve was successfully performed. The patient’s condition remained stable during the 2-year follow-up period after surgery. This case aims to provide a reference for percutaneous pulmonary valve replacement in patients with cone-shaped right ventricular outflow tract.
Surgical bioprosthetic valve in the mitral position typically degenerates in 10-15 years, when intervention is required again. In the past, redo surgical mitral valve replacement has been the only treatment choice for such patients suffering from bioprosthetic valve failure, despite the even higher risk associated with redo open-heart surgery. In recent years, transcatheter valve-in-valve implantation in the mitral position has evolved as an reasonable alternative to redo surgery for the treatment of surgical mitral bioprosthetic valve failure. Here we report an 81-year-old female patient with surgical mitral bioprosthetic valve failure, who successfully underwent valve-in-valve transcatheter mitral valve replacement via the transfemoral-transseptal approach. The procedure was successful owing to comprehensive CT imaging work-up, despite the technical challenges associated with bilateral giant atria and small left ventricle.
Objective To explore the role of systolic and diastolic dysfunction in the prognosis of Chinese patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). Methods CAD patients who underwent coronary arteriography in the Department of Cardiology of West China Hospital between July 2008 and June 2012 were included in this study. All the patients underwent color Doppler echocardiographic examination. Based on patients’ systolic and diastolic cardiac function, left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) <55% was as the systolic dysfunction and the ratio of mitral peak velocity of early filling to early diastolic mitral annular velocity (E/e’) >15 was as the diastolic dysfuntion. They were divided into normal cardiac function group (LVEF≥55%, E/e’ ratio≤15), systolic and diastolic dysfunction group (LVEF<55%, E/e’ ratio>15), diastolic dysfunction group (LVEF≥55%, E/e’ ratio>15) and systolic dysfunction group (LVEF<55%, E/e’ ratio≤15). The end points of follow-up were all-cause death and a major cardiovascular event (MACE). Results A total of 985 patients with complete echocardiographic report were included in this study. During the follow-up of (21.4±9.7) months, 46 patients (4.7%) died, and 52 (5.4%) had a MACE. Systolic dysfunction concomitant with diastolic dysfunction group and systolic dysfunction group patients had a higher risk of 36-month all-cause death (4.8%, 10.7%,P<0.001) and a higher risk of 41-month MACE (8.6%, 7.6%,P=0.028). Single factor analysis of all-cause death mortality showed that compared with the normal group, all-cause death mortality was the highest in systolic and diastolic dysfunction group (P<0.05), followed by diastolic dysfunction group (P<0.05) and systolic dysfunction group (P>0.05). Single factor analysis of MACE showed that compared with the normal group, MACE was still the highest in systolic and diastolic dysfunction group (P<0.05), followed by systolic dysfunction group (P<0.05) and diastolic dysfunction group (P>0.05). A multivariate Cox regression model analysis showed that compared with the normal group, the risk of all-cause death was the highest in the systolic and diastolic dysfunction group [hazard ratio (HR)=2.96, 95% confidence interval (CI) (1.34, 6.54),P=0.007], followed by the systolic dysfunction group [HR=1.91, 95%CI (0.67, 5.42),P=0.224] and the diastolic dysfunction group [HR=0.95, 95%CI (0.40, 2.23),P=0.905]. Conclusion Compared with normal patients, patients with either systolic or diastolic dysfunction have a poorer prognosis, and patients with systolic dysfunction concomitant with diastolic dysfunction have the poorest prognosis.
Objective To compare the efficacy and safety of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) in aortic stenosis patients with bicuspid aortic valve (BAV) versus tricuspid aortic valve (TAV). Methods This retrospective study included 252 consecutive patients with severe and symptomatic aortic valve stenosis undergoing TAVR in West China Hospital form April 2012 to September 2017, in whom 4 patients were excluded because of valve failure after surgical aortic valve replacement. Results Of the 248 patients, 131 had BAV and 117 had TAV. Baseline characteristics were similar between the two groups, including age [(73.56±6.35) vs. (74.31±6.35) years, P=0.354], male proportion (51.9% vs. 63.2%, P=0.072). Society of Thoracic Surgeons score for BAV patients was lower than that for TAV patients [(7.56±4.01)% vs. (8.78±5.14)%, P=0.037]. Procedural success rate was high in both BAV and TAV groups (95.4% vs. 98.3%, P=0.359). There was no difference in 30-day all-cause mortality (6.1% vs. 2.6%, P=0.176) between the two groups; the aortic valve maximum velocity of valve hemodynamics after TAVR was similiar [(2.39±0.53) vs. (2.31±0.45) m/s, P=0.262] between the two groups. Conclusions Patients with BAV show similar procedural and clinical outcomes to patients with TAV. Therefore, TAVR appears to be a safe and effective procedure for patients with BAV as well as those with TAV.