Short-term safety and efficacy of transcarotid transcatheter aortic valve implantation with balloon-expandable vs. self-expandable valves

Introduction
Transfemoral access (TF) is the preferred access for transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI). Transcarotid TAVI (TC-TAVI) is an alternative for patients in whom TF-TAVI is impossible. Two types of valves – balloon-expandable (BE) and self-expandable (SE) – can be used in TC-TAVI procedures. Aim: Comparison of the short-term results of patients treated with TC-TAVI using BE and SE valves.

Material and methods
The retrospective registry included 39 patients in whom the TC-TAVI procedure was performed between 2017 and 2020 (BE-TAVI; n = 10, SE-TAVI; n = 29). Preoperative characteristics, operative and postoperative results, and 30-days mortality were compared.

Results
Patients from the BE-TAVI group had higher surgical risk (EuroSCORE) (10.8% (6.2–14.0) vs. 5.5% (4.3–8.7); p = 0.027). The incidence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) was higher in the SE-TAVI group (34.5% vs. 0%; p = 0.040). In terms of other comorbidities, demographics, preprocedural laboratory results, transthoracic echocardiography (TTE), and multislice computed tomography (MSCT), the two groups were comparable. In both groups, we observed 100% procedural success. The median valve size was larger in the SE-TAVI group (29.0 (26.0–29.0) vs. 26.0 (23.0–26.0); p < 0.001). The hospitalization time was shorter in the BE-TAVI group vs. SE-TAVI (5.8 ±0.6 vs. 6.4 ±0.9; p = 0.043). We did not observe statistically significant differences between BE-TAVI and SE-TAVI in periprocedural and 30-day mortality, or the number of strokes/TIA. Also TTE parameters and NYHA class showed similar improvement at 30 days in both groups.

Conclusions
TC-TAVI using balloon-expandable and self-expandable valves showed similar safety and efficacy in 30 days follow-up.