Background: Although aortic valve replacement (AVR) can be lifesaving, many patients with symptomatic aortic stenosis do not undergo appropriate therapy. This study sought to examine the characteristics, outcomes, and reasons for not pursuing AVR in a contemporary cohort.
Methods and results: We examined 548 patients with severe, symptomatic aortic stenosis not treated with AVR through March 2017. Patients were grouped according to AVR appropriateness based on the presence of medical futility. Demographics, rationale for no AVR therapy, and outcomes were assessed. There were 359 (65.5%) potentially appropriate candidates for AVR and 189 (34.5%) others patients with futility. Among potentially appropriate patients, 62.1% had severe symptoms, 74.4% had not been referred for AVR, and 40.1% were low risk. Patient refusal was common (54.6%), with incorrect symptom assignment or aortic stenosis severity classification accounting for nearly all other explanations. Compared with patients with futility, potentially appropriate AVR patients had lower rates of both referral to cardiology or surgery (85.2% versus 92.6%; P=0.01) and complete heart team evaluations (10.6% versus 17.5%; P=0.02). Palliative consultation occurred in only 124 patients (22.6%) overall and in only 10.0% of those without futility. Overall, the 1-year mortality was 54.7%, with heart failure hospitalization occurring in 19.3%.
Conclusions: In this contemporary study, two-thirds of patients with symptomatic aortic stenosis treated medically were potentially appropriate AVR candidates and had poor outcomes. Most had incomplete heart team evaluations, commonly had severe symptoms or lesion severity misinterpreted, and were not evaluated by palliative care. Given the potential for beneficial outcomes among those untreated, further efforts to address these shortcomings are needed.
Keywords: aortic stenosis; aortic valve; aortic valve replacement; cohort studies; heart failure; palliative care.