Surgical aortic valve replacement is the primary choice for the treatment of aortic valve stenosis. It can significantly improve the quality of life and life expectancy of patients, but some patients have risks such as advanced age and poor general conditions and can not receive open chest surgery. In 2002, a French doctor, Cribier, successfully performed transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) surgery on a patient with aortic stenosis. At present, the safety and effectiveness of TAVI surgery have been confirmed by many studies. However, its complications are also relatively common. This article summarizes the related reports at home and abroad.
Pulmonary hypertension due to left heart disease (PH-LHD) is the most common in various types of pulmonary hypertension. Although there are many treatments for pulmonary hypertension, it may be harmful when we adopt treatment without detrimental diagnosis and classification of pulmonary hypertension. Therefore, it is very crucial to have accurate diagnosis and classification of pulmonary hypertension before making treatment decisions. However, there are still some difficulties in the classification of pulmonary hypertension in clinical work. It is a great challenge with limited treatment to solve the PH-LHD which often has complicated pathophysiological mechanisms of precapillary and postcapillary pulmonary hypertension. Here, we review the research status of PH-LHD.
Atrial fibrillation (AF) is difficult to cure for its complex etiology and long disease duration. Heart failure, sudden death and stroke are the main causes for consequent high mortality and morbidity. In recent years, minimally invasive surgery has made rapid progress, not only improved treatment efficiency of traditional Cox Maze procedure but also massively reduced surgical injuries, and has become a preferred treatment strategy for lone AF. Minimally invasive surgery and catheter ablation complement each other, and are likely to open up a new prospect of AF treatment.
Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) techniques have been rapidly developed in recent years. Current guidelines and studies mainly focus on aortic stenosis patients treated by transfemoral approach, but they are not completely appropriate to patients with isolated aortic regurgitation or other patients who need transapical TAVR (TA-TAVR), which affects the standardized treatment of those patients. Therefore, our team pronounced the operational standards for TA-TAVR, based on fully reviewing the literatures worldwide, combined with the opinions of experts from 15 heart centers with rich experience in carrying out TA-TAVR in China. This standard aims to provide clinicians with standardized diagnosis and treatment principles of TA-TAVR and improve the quality of TA-TAVR in China.
Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) has been confirmed to be safety and efficacy for high-risk elderly aortic stenosis, and the clinical effect of TAVR for medium and low-risk aortic stenosis is not worse than that of surgery. The development of surgical techniques and instruments has made cardiologists attempt to broaden the surgical indications. Many elderly and high-risk patients with pure native aortic regurgitation have been treated “off label” with similar techniques, completing artificial valve replacement, restoring valve function and improving the prognosis. However, due to the high requirements of surgical techniques and surgical complications, there is a lack of randomized controlled studies to confirm its safety and effectiveness. Unlike aortic stenosis, native aortic regurgitation presents unique challenges for transcatheter valves. In this article, the authors review current advances in the treatment of aortic valve regurgitation with TAVR.