Outcomes of Surgical versus Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement: A Clinical Review

Introduction: Surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) has been the predominant treatment for aortic stenosis (AS) for decades. However, transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) is becoming increasingly popular. Originally, TAVRs were only performed on patients who were deemed high-risk for surgery and would have died without the valve replacement. The purpose of this paper is to determine if TAVR or SAVR has better health outcomes for all patients no matter their surgical risk. Methods: A search via PubMed database was done using the key words “aortic stenosis”, “surgical aortic valve replacement”, “transcatheter aortic valve replacement”, and “mortality.” Additional search filters were applied for randomized control trials, systematic reviews, and meta- analyses. Dates were restricted to the last 5 years, and restrictions were added for English language and free full text only. This yielded 67 results and 5 were selected. Results: Of the five reviewed articles, all were meta-analyses and one systematic review. There was a total of 52122 patients. Primary endpoints across all articles were that there is no significant difference between TAVR and SAVR in the outcomes studied. Discussion: This review of studies provided supportive evidence that both TAVR and SAVR are valid treatment options or AS. TAVR had better short-term outcomes while SAVR had better long-term outcomes.