Causes and Clinical Outcomes of Patients Who Are Ineligible for Transcatheter Mitral Valve Replacement

The aim of this study was to gain insight into the causes and outcomes of patients who do not qualify for transcatheter mitral valve replacement (TMVR).

Despite the increasing availability of TMVR, patients with severe mitral regurgitation may not be eligible. Thus far, no investigation has examined ineligible patients and their clinical outcomes.

A total of 203 patients (mean age 79 ± 9 years, 48% men) who were ineligible for participation in early feasibility studies of TMVR were examined.

The ineligibility rate for TMVR was 89.0%. The most common reasons for TMVR exclusion were excessive frailty (15.3%), severe tricuspid regurgitation (15.3%), and prior aortic valve therapy (14.2%). Mitral anatomic exclusions were present in 15.8%, with severe annular calcification in 7.4%, and risk for left ventricular outflow tract obstruction was notably infrequent (4.4%). Overall, 76 patients (37.4%) did not undergo subsequent commercial surgical or transcatheter mitral therapy. Patients not eligible for TMVR and not treated commercially had high rates of cardiac death (11.8%) and death or heart failure hospitalization (22.4%) at 1 year. These rates were significantly higher than those who underwent surgery (2.4% for cardiac death; p < 0.001; 5.5% for heart failure hospitalization; p = 0.003) and remained worse after excluding patients with excessive frailty or medical futility and in multivariate modeling that adjusted for baseline differences.

Patients ineligible for TMVR and treated medically have poor outcomes. These data and the high rate of TMVR screen failure support the need for therapy iteration as well as development of alternative means of management, with the goal of improving the prognosis of these patients.