Comparison of transthoracic and transesophageal echocardiography for transcatheter aortic valve replacement sizing in high-risk patients.

backgroundUntreated symptomatic high-grade aortic stenosis remains a lethal disease requiring individually adapted valve replacement. High-risk surgical patients benefit from transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), but there is no uniform standard for patient selection and valve sizing and it is still unclear whether transthoracic (TTE) or transesophageal (TEE) echocardiography is superior in preprocedural aortic annulus sizing. As preprocedural sizing of the native aortic annulus diameter is crucial to outcome and survival, we report the results of a direct comparison between preprocedural sizing with TTE and TEE including subsequent outcomes in a high-risk TAVR population.

methodsA total of 149 TAVR patients were enrolled for TTE and TEE comparison, and an additional 15 patients without structural heart disease were investigated as control group to determine the influence of aortic valve calcification on TTE and TEE aortic annulus diameter measurements.

resultsOverall standardized TTE and TEE measurements for aortic annulus sizing showed excellent correlation at good image quality (p < 0.01, r = 0.934). Calcification of the aortic annulus diameter was not found to exert a noteworthy negative influence on measurements for both standardized TTE and TEE and complication rates did not differ for mortality, periprocedural stroke and paraprosthetic regurgitation.

conclusionsTransthoracic echocardiography and TEE are both equally suitable methods of preprocedural aortic annulus size evaluation in preparation of TAVR procedures.