Why is this study important?

Patients with severe aortic stenosis and low surgical risk undergoing TAVR and SAVR have similar clinical outcomes at 7 years. While TAVR has been shown to improve health status early on compared to SAVR, data on long-term health status outcomes are limited.

What question was this study supposed to answer?

This sub-study of the PARTNER 3 Trial aimed to compare long-term health status outcomes utilizing the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ) and SF-36 at baseline, 1 month, 6 months, and annually thereafter in patients with severe aortic stenosis and low surgical risk who are undergoing TAVR versus SAVR. The higher the KCCQ score, the better the overall health status, with higher quality of life and fewer symptoms.

What did the study show?

There were 943 patients (494 TAVR, 449 SAVR) included in this study with an average age of 73 years, 69% men, and mean STS-PROM 1.9%. There was no difference in baseline KCCQ score between TAVR and SAVR at 71.0 vs. 70.8 (p=0.856), respectively.

At 1 month, TAVR had a moderate-to-large improvement in health status outcomes, which was significantly greater than SAVR, with a difference of 15.5 points on the KCCQ. This difference between the TAVR and SAVR groups was attenuated at 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years, but remained statistically significant in favor of improved health status outcomes in TAVR compared to SAVR. However, there was no significant difference in overall health status outcomes between TAVR and SAVR at the 3- to 7-year follow-up periods.

This study demonstrates that while there is an early improvement in health status outcomes with TAVR compared to SAVR, both provide similar long-term health status outcomes.