Incidence, Predictors, and Impact of Vascular Complications After Transfemoral Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation With the SAPIEN 3 Prosthesis

Vascular complications (VCs) after transfemoral transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) have always been reported to occur frequently. Studies addressing VCs have been conducted with older-generation prostheses. We aimed to evaluate the incidence, predictors, and impact of VCs after transfemoral TAVI with the balloon-expandable SAPIEN 3. We report a single-center retrospective analysis of 400 consecutive patients of a prospectively acquired cohort. All patients underwent transfemoral TAVI with SAPIEN 3 between January 2014 and December 2016. VC was defined according to the Valve Academic Research Consortium. In this cohort 83 patients had VCs (20.8%), 5.8% major and 15.0% minor. Sheath-to-iliofemoral artery ratio was the only predictor of major VCs (odds ratio 7.51, 95% confidence interval 1.61 to 34.95, p = 0.010). The area under the receiver-operator characteristic curve for sheath-to-iliofemoral artery ratio was 0.63 (poor accuracy). Thirty-day mortality rates were 17.4%, 1.7%, and 0.6% for major, minor, and no VCs, respectively (log-rank p ≤0.001). After adjustment, only major VCs were associated with 30-day mortality (adjusted hazard ratio 48.31, 95% confidence interval 7.80 to 299.24). Mortality from 30 days until 1 year did not differ between patients with and without VCs (log-rank p = 0.61). In conclusion we report that VCs remain an issue of transfemoral TAVI with the SAPIEN 3, and their prediction continues to be difficult, albeit the low-incidence, major VCs were associated with higher 30-day mortality. However, after these first 30 days, they were not of influence on survival anymore.