Background and Aim: Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) has become an acceptable alternative to surgical aortic valve replacement for elderly patients with severe symptomatic aortic stenosis (AS). TAVI has been offered to very elderly patients who were previously excluded from valve replacement surgery. However, data concerning the impact of extreme age on outcome following TAVI is lacking. Therefore we aimed to investigate the hospital and long term outcome of patients older than 87 who underwent TAVI.
Methods: We evaluated all patients aged ≥88 years with symptomatic severe AS who underwent TAVI in our institute regarding their baseline characteristics, peri-procedural, in hospital and long term outcome.
Results: Out of 269 patients who underwent TAVI in our department, 34 (12.6%) patients were aged ≥88 years. The median age was 89.5 years, while the oldest was 94 years old. Baseline EuroScore and STS score were 19.5±11.3% and 8.8±3.7% respectively. Functional capacity was 3 and 4 NYHA. Peri-procedural and in hospital complication rate are shown in the Table. All patients regained 1-2 functional capacity. Only one patient (4.3%) had suffered from stroke and one patient (4.3%) had died during a 1 year follow up period.
Conclusions: In our experience, carefully selected patients at extreme age benefit from TAVI with reasonable overall risk of mainly minor vascular complication and bleeding which did not impact the overall survival or functional capacity. We suggest careful consideration of these patients while taking into account factors such as frailty and baseline functional and cognitive capacity in order to optimize their outcome.
