Aims: To report aortic root geometry by echocardiography in a large population of healthy, asymptomatic aortic stenosis (AS) patients in relation to current vendor-specified requirements for transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI).
Methods and results: Baseline data in 1481 patients with asymptomatic AS (mean age 67 years, 39% women) in the Simvastatin Ezetimibe in AS study were used. The inner aortic diameter was measured at four levels: annulus, sinus of Valsalva, sinotubular junction and supracoronary, and sinus height as the annulo-junctional distance. Analyses were based on vendor-specified requirements for the aortic root geometry for current available prostheses, CoreValve and Edwards-Sapien. The ratio of sinus of Valsalva height to sinus width was 1:2. In multivariate linear regression analysis, larger sinus of Valsalva height was associated with older age, larger sinus of Valsalva diameter, lower ejection fraction and smaller supracoronary diameter (multiple R(2) = 0.19, P< 0.01). The required annulus diameter for implantation of CoreValve was met in 61.9%, and for the Edwards-Sapien prosthesis in 66.9%. Overall, annular dimension feasible for TAVI using any available prosthesis was found in 78.2% of patients and in 77.7% of patients also the required minimum sinus of Valsalva height was found. Comparing the group of patients who met TAVI requirements to those who did not, the latter included more women and patients with lower body height and weight and significantly smaller aortic root diameters (all P < 0.05).
Conclusion: Among AS patients in the SEAS study, 27% of women and 19% of men did not have aortic root geometry fulfilling current requirements for TAVI.