Can Blood Biomarkers Help Predicting Outcome in Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation?

Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) has become the method of choice for patients with severe aortic valve stenosis, who are ineligible or at high risk for surgery. In this high risk patient population, early and late mortality and rehospitalization rates after TAVI are still relatively high. In spite of recent improvements in procedural TAVI, and establishment of risk models for poor outcome, determining individual risk remains challenging. In this context, current data from several small studies strongly suggest that blood biomarkers of myocardial injury, cardiac mechanical stretch, inflammation, and hemostasis imbalance might play an important role by providing informations on patient risk at baseline, and postprocedural progression of patient clinical conditions from days up to years post-TAVI. Although the role of biomarkers for predicting survival post-TAVI remains to be validated in large randomized studies, implementing biomarkers in clinical practice might improve risk stratification, thereby further reducing TAVI-associated morbidity and mortality.