Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 5, 2025

Transcatheter Pulmonary Valve Replacement from Autologous Pericardium with a Self-Expandable Nitinol Stent in an Adult Sheep Model
Published on: June 8, 2022
Transcatheter Pulmonary Valve Replacement With Balloon-Expandable Valves: Utilization and Procedural Outcomes From
Ada C Stefanescu Schmidt1, Aimee K Armstrong2, Jamil A Aboulhosn3
1Heart Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Background:
Transcatheter pulmonary valve replacement (TPVR) has expanded and evolved since its initial commercial approval in the United States in 2010.
Objectives:
This study sought to characterize real-world practice, including patient selection, procedural outcomes, complications, and off-label usage.
Methods:
Characteristics and outcomes for patients undergoing balloon-expandable TPVR were collected from the American College of Cardiology National Cardiovascular Data Registry IMPACT (Improving Pediatric and Adult Congenital Treatment) Registry.
Results:
Between April 2016 and March 2021, 4,513 TPVR procedures were performed in patients with a median age of 19 years, 57% with a Melody (Medtronic Inc) and 43% with a SAPIEN (Edwards Lifesciences) valve. Most implanting centers performed <10 cases annually. One-third of transcatheter pulmonary valve implants were into homograft conduits, one-third were into bioprosthetic valves (BPVs), 25% were in native or patched right ventricular outflow tracts (RVOTs), and 6% were into Contegra (Medtronic Inc) conduits. Over the course of the study period, SAPIEN valve use grew from ∼25% to 60%, in large part because of implants in patients with a native/patched RVOT. Acute success was achieved in 95% of patients (95.7% in homografts, 96.2% in BPVs, 94.2% in native RVOTs, and 95.4% in Contegra conduits). Major adverse events occurred in 2.4% of procedures, more commonly in patients with a homograft (2.9%) or native RVOT (3.4%) than a prior BPV (1.4%; P = 0.004).
Conclusions:
This study describes novel population data on the use and procedural outcomes of TPVR with balloon-expandable valves. Over time, there has been increasing use of TPVR to treat regurgitant native RVOT anatomy, with the SAPIEN valve more commonly used for this application.

