In-Hospital Outcomes with Transfemoral Versus Transapical Access for Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement in Patients with Peripheral Arterial Disease

Background: There is a paucity of data regarding outcomes with transfemoral (TF) versus transapical (TA) access for transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) in patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD). Methods: We queried the national inpatient sample database (NIS) (2012−2013) to identify patients with PAD who underwent TAVR. We conducted a propensity matching analysis using 25 clinical variables to compare TF-TAVR versus TA-TAVR. The main outcome was in-hospital mortality. Results: The analysis included 22,349 patients who underwent TAVR, among those 6692 (29.9%) had PAD. In the matched cohort, in-hospital mortality was similar between TF-TAVR and TA-TAVR groups (4.8% vs. 5.1%, OR 0.95; 95%CI 0.74–1.21). TF-TAVR was associated with lower rates of cardiogenic shock (OR 0.64; 95%CI 0.50–0.82), use of mechanical circulatory support (OR 0.56; 95%CI 0.42–0.75), acute kidney injury (OR 0.76; 95%CI 0.67–0.86), hemodialysis (OR 0.51; 95%CI 0.36–0.71), major bleeding (OR 0.72; 95%CI 0.64–0.80), blood transfusion (OR 0.65; 95%CI 0.58–0.73), discharge to a skilled nursing facility (OR 0.61; 95%CI 0.54–0.68) as well as shorter length of hospital stay (8.13 ± 6.76 vs. 10.11 ± 7.80 days) compared with TA-TAVR. However, TF-TAVR was associated with higher rate of vascular complications (11.7% vs. 3.7%, OR 3.40; 95%CI 2.63–4.38), complete heart block (OR 1.52; 95%CI 1.23–1.87), and pacemaker insertion (OR = 1.58; 95%CI: 1.28–1.94). There was no difference between both groups in the rate of cerebrovascular accidents (OR 1.26; 95%CI 0.93–1.72). Conclusion: In this observational analysis from a large national database, there was no difference in in-hospital mortality between TF-TAVR and TA-TAVR among patients with PAD. Further studies are encouraged to identify the optimal access for TAVR in patients with PAD.