Vascular Complications and Bleeding After Transfemoral TAVI: a Comparison Between Surgical and Percutaneous Approaches

Since the first implantation by Cribier, transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) revolutionized the management of severe symptomatic aortic stenosis. Indeed, TAVI is indicated as an alternative to conventional surgery in patients at high surgical risk or contra-indicated to conventional surgery.

However, TAVI remains associated with specific complications related to the technics itself dominated by vascular complications and conductive disorders. Major vascular complications remain frequent after TAVI despite improvements in operators' experience, patient's selection and lower profile devices. Indeed, according to the Valve Academic Research Consortium 2 (VARC-2) criteria , major VC are still reported with an incidence of 1.5% to 15% of the procedures in registries and may be associated with unfavorable clinical outcomes. Currently, percutaneous approach (PC) in transfemoral TAVI is performed in routine, considered as a less invasive strategy than the traditional surgical cutdown (SC) performed in the first TAVI experience. Indeed, percutaneous approach may facilitate the local anesthesia and does not require the presence of the surgeon in the catheterization laboratory . However, surgical approach is still performed in many centers, allowing a better control of the puncture site with a low rate of vascular complications . Several non-randomized studies compared the two approaches with contradictory results]. No data are available comparing both approaches performed by the same team during the same period.

The aim of this study was to compare percutaneous and surgical approaches in terms of vascular complications and bleeding in patients undergoing transfemoral TAVI.