The passability of delivery catheter system during self-expanding transcatheter aortic valve replacement: A CT-based...

Aortic anatomy may pose challenges to the advancement of the delivery catheter system (DCS) and affect the outcome of self-expanding transcatheter aortic valve replacement (SE-TAVR). This study aimed to develop a preprocedural CT-based nomogram to predict the passability of DCS and clinical SE-TAVR outcomes.

Data of 348 patients who underwent transfemoral SE-TAVR were retrospectively collected from May 2018 to December 2023. A number of 118 patients received snare catheter, indicating poor DCS passaibility. All patients were randomized to development (n = 244) and validation (n = 104) sets. A predictive model was constructed by logistic regression and presented as a nomogram, which indicated that larger aortic angle, severe calcification, larger ascending aorta diameter, coronary ostial height of ≤10 mm, and bicuspid aortic valve were independent anatomical risk factors for poor DCS passability during SE-TAVR. Subsequently, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, calibration curve, and decision curve analysis (DCA) were depicted to assess the performance of the nomogram, revealing its good accuracy and concordance. This model also showed that patients with poor DCS passability were more likely to develop significant postprocedural paravalvular leak (PVL).

The model adequately predicts the DCS passability during SE-TAVR, which provides a comprehensive profile of risk factors for poor DCS passability and indicates coronary ostial height of ≤10 mm as a novel anatomical risk factor, in addition to the larger aortic angle, severe calcification, larger ascending aorta diameter, and bicuspid aortic valve. Patients with poor DCS passability are more likely to develop significant PVL.