Transcatheter and surgical aortic valve procedures were shown to have similar outcomes at 2 years in severe aortic stenosis patients deemed to be at intermediate surgical risk, according to a recently published study.
Data came from a 2-year follow up with patients in the Partner 2 trial, which aimed to explore the difference between the 2 procedures in intermediate risk patients.
A total of 2,032 patients were examined in the trial, which was randomly divided into 2 cohorts, with the 1st receiving Edwards Lifesciences‘(NYSE:EW) Sapien XT and the 2nd receiving a surgical AVR procedure.
At 2 years, both disease-specific and generic health statuses showed significant improvements in both arms of the study.
TAVR patients showed better health statuses than those treated with AVR at 1 month, but only in patients treated via transferal access, but researchers found no significant differences between TAVR and surgical AVR patients in any health measures at 1 or 2 years.
“Among intermediate-risk patients with severe AS, health status improved significantly with both TAVR and SAVR through 2 years of follow up. Early health status improvement was greater with TAVR, but only among patients treated via transfemoral access. Longer term follow-up is needed to assess the durability of quality-of-life improvement with TAVR vs SAVR in this population,” study authors wrote in their conclusions.