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Depboylu et al. Vessel Plus 2018;2:26 Vessel Plus
DOI: 10.20517/2574-1209.2018.39

Review Open Access

Complications of transcatheter aortic valve
replacement and rescue attempts

Burak Can Depboylu , Serkan Yazman , Bugra Harmandar 1
2
1
1 Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Mugla Sitki Kocman University, Faculty of Medicine, Mugla 48000, Turkey.
2 Cardiovascular Surgery Clinic, Mugla Sitki Kocman University Education and Research Hospital, Mugla 48000, Turkey.
Correspondence to: Dr. Burak Can Depboylu, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Mugla Sitki Kocman University, Faculty of
Medicine, Mugla 48000, Turkey. E-mail: burakdepboylu@mu.edu.tr
How to cite this article: Depboylu BC, Yazman S, Harmandar B. Complications of transcatheter aortic valve replacement and
rescue attempts. Vessel Plus 2018;2:26. http://dx.doi.org/10.20517/2574-1209.2018.39

Received: 29 May 2018 First Decision: 6 Aug 2018 Revised: 17 Aug 2018 Accepted: 23 Aug 2018 Published: 21 Sep 2018
Science Editors: Mario F. L. Gaudino, Cristiano Spadaccio Copy Editor: Yuan-Li Wang Production Editor: Huan-Liang Wu

Abstract
As a novel treatment modality, transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) is widely used for patients with severe
aortic valve stenosis who have high surgical risk worldwide. However, this promising alternative procedure has different
types of complication risks including, cerebrovascular events, vascular complications, bleeding, coronary obstruction,
myocardial infarction, valve regurgitation, valve malpositioning or migration, conduction disturbances and acute kidney
injury which may occur during and/or after the procedure. These complications may be seen up to one third of the
patients and some of them may need urgent surgical intervention and may have a higher risk of death. For preventing
and overcoming these complications, pre-procedural evaluation of the patient by an effective “heart team” which
consists of cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, radiologists and anesthesiologists in equal proportion is needed. Estimating
the potential difficulties and complications, deciding the interventions to be performed in case of any complication may
increase the success of the procedure and save the patients’ lives. In this article, we reviewed the possible complications
of the TAVR procedure and described rescue procedures in case of complications, in the context of the literature.

Keywords: Aortic valve stenosis, transcatheter aortic valve replacement, risk factors, complication, surgery, catheter

INTRODUCTION
Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) was firstly described as catheter-based implantation of a
crimped valve, to the stenotic native aortic valve via transapical access-antegrade approach in 2002, as an
alternative treatment method to surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) for patients who have high or
[1,2]
prohibitive surgical risk . Since 2002, TAVR is used increasingly all over the world. By the time, different
access sites have been described and different TAVR valves have been developed [Figures 1 and 2].

© The Author(s) 2018. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use,
sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, for any purpose, even commercially, as long
as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license,
and indicate if changes were made.

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