Dr. Patrick T. O’Gara cautioned against generalizing results from the PARTNER cohort, which averaged 84 years in age. "We have durability information in the octogenarian group over 3 years of time. When we think about deploying this kind of technology in younger and healthier individuals, there remain concerns about durability and about paravalvular leaks," he said at a press briefing.
Concerns about some findings, such as the 44% mortality rate at 3 years, may amount to unnecessarily "throwing darts" at the TAVR results, he suggested. "Let’s remember that we’re dealing with a group of patients who are 84 years of age on average. Our expectations for their outcomes need to be tempered by the context in which these procedures are offered," said Dr. O’Gara, director of clinical cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston.
Each TAVR costs approximately $70,000-$75,000, Dr. Thourani estimated.
Edwards Lifesciences, which makes the transcatheter valve replacement systems, funded the PARTNER trial, and Dr. Thourani and some of his coinvestigators disclosed financial relationships with the company. He also disclosed relationships with St. Jude Medical, Marquet Medical, Sorin Medical, and Medtronic. Dr. O’Gara had nothing to disclose. Dr. Gersh disclosed financial relationships with St. Jude Medical and Boston Scientific.
Twitter @sherryboschert