TAVI Devices Good after Five Years

The first long term study of transcatheter aortic valve implant (TAVI) devices shows that they are durable after five years and could last as long as surgical valves.

More than 100 patients, with an average age of 83, underwent TAVI at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, Canada. According to the study, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, three patients suffered moderate prosthetic transcatheter valve failure, but no patient suffered severe transvalvular regurgitation or restenosis.

Survival rates at one to five years were 83%, 74%, 53%, 42%, and 35% respectively, but Webb says those rates are not because of device failure.

“During this early feasibility study, the procedure was only offered to extremely ill patients who were anticipated to have a poor five-year survival due to advanced age and other sever comorbidities,” says the study’s senior author, Dr. John Webb, according to heartwire.

"We did not know if these valves would last five years. We now do," Webb says.