New Guidelines Released for TAVR Patient Care and Evaluation

The American College of Cardiology has recently released a “clinical expert consensus pathway to provide additional details and practical guidance” for evaluation and care of patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). The new guideline is an updated version of the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology guidelines released in 2014.
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The updated guidelines are separated into 4 sections, and include point-of-care checklists and algorithms. The 4 sections cover preprocedure evaluations, imaging modalities and measurements, key issues in performing TAVR surgery, and recommendations for follow-up with patients after TAVR.

“Readers are urged to use these checklists as a starting point, revising them as needed to match institutional protocols and updating details as new clinical data become available,” the authors stated.

—Melissa Weiss

Reference:

Otto CM, Kumbhani DJ, Alexander KP, Calhoon JH, Desai MY, Kaul S, Lee JC, Ruiz CE, Vassileva CM, 2017 ACC Expert Consensus Decision Pathway for Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement in the Management of Adults with Aortic Stenosis [published online ahead of print January 5, 2017]. Journal of the American College of Cardiology (2017). doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2016.12.006. http://www.onlinejacc.org/content/accj/early/2016/12/21/j.jacc.2016.12.006.full.pdf.