Novel transcatheter therapies for treating tricuspid regurgitation

Until recently, tricuspid valve (TV) disease has been relatively neglected for a long time, but recently tricuspid regurgitation (TR) has attracted attention. Although the prognosis of patients with these disorders is poor, the high mortality and morbidity associated with TV surgery have resulted in many patients not receiving surgical therapy. Current guidelines recommend that TV surgery should be considered in patients with severe TR who are symptomatic or have progressive right ventricle (RV) dilatation or dysfunction. In the absence of severe RV or left ventricle dysfunction, surgery should be considered in cases of severe pulmonary vascular disease or hypertension; however, it is difficult to assess RV dysfunction. Symptoms of right heart failure are more nonspecific and difficult to diagnose than those of left heart failure. Furthermore, the severity of TR is easily influenced by the use of diuretics. These factors lead to difficulties in patient selection and in determination of optimal timing for surgery. Transcatheter therapies for TR have begun to emerge as an alternative for patients with severe symptomatic TR who are at high-risk for standard surgery. Although initial results from a recent international multicenter registry have demonstrated that transcatheter TV therapy is feasible and safe, its clinical experience is still under development. In the present review, we describe the currently available techniques of transcatheter TV intervention and preliminary clinical results.