Surgical Cutdown Avoids Vascular Complications in Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement in Calcified and Small Femoral Arteries.

BACKGROUND

Third-generation transcatheter heart valves (THV) are predominantly implanted through a percutaneous, transfemoral access. To reduce vascular complications, we selectively performed surgical vascular access (cutdown) in patients with particular calcified or small femoral arteries. We aim to review our experience with this approach.

METHODS

All patients who underwent transfemoral transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) with a third-generation THV at our institution between March 2014 and April 2019 were included in the study. All available computerized tomography studies were reassessed for access vessel diameter and visual graduation of calcifications. Vascular complications are reported according to Valve Academic Research Consortium-2 criteria.

RESULTS

A total of 944 patients were included. Among them, 879 patients underwent a percutaneous access and 65 patients underwent surgical cutdown. Also, 459 Evolut R/PRO and 420 Sapien 3/ultra were implanted percutaneously and 40 Evolut R/PRO and 25 Sapien 3 were implanted with a surgical cutdown. Patients with surgical cutdown were older (80.0 ± 7.5 vs. 83.8 ± 7.5 years,  < 0.001), had smaller femoral arteries (8.0 ± 1.6 vs. 7.6 ± 1.6 mm,  = 0.034) and more severe vessel calcifications (17.5 vs. 1.0%,  < 0.001). Procedure time was similar for cutdown and percutaneous access (64.0 vs. 64.5 minutes,  = 0.879). With percutaneous access, 80 major vascular complications (10%) occurred, whereas with surgical cutdown, no major vascular complications occurred ( < 0.005). No wound infection occurred after surgical cutdown. The mean length of stay was 8 days in both groups.

CONCLUSION

Surgical cutdown for vascular access avoids vascular complications in patients with small or severely calcified femoral arteries.