Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation in Patients With “Porcelain” Aorta (from a Multicenter Real World Registry)

The presence of severe atherosclerosis of the ascending aorta, and its extreme form the “porcelain” aorta, is associated with a worse clinical outcome in patients undergoing surgical aortic valve replacement. Percutaneous transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) for severe symptomatic aortic stenosis can overcome this problem: 1,374 TAVI procedures were performed at 27 hospitals in 147 patients (10.7%) with and 1,227 (89.3%) without a porcelain aorta. The mean reported prevalence of a porcelain aorta at the hospitals was 7.8% ± 14.8% (range 0% to 70%). Diabetes mellitus (46.3% vs 33.2%, p = 0.00018), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (43.5% vs 22.2%, p <0.0001), and peripheral arterial obstructive disease (34.7% vs 20.0%, p <0.0001) were more prevalent in patients with a porcelain aorta. In patients with a porcelain aorta, coronary ischemia occurred more often (2.0% vs 0.1%, p <0.0001), with a tendency toward a greater stroke rate (5.5% vs 2.8%, p = 0.08), greater in-hospital death rate (10.9% vs 8.1%, p = 0.24), and greater death or stroke rate (14.4% vs 10.2%, p = 0.12). On multivariate analysis, the presence of a porcelain aorta was not associated with in-hospital death (odds ratio 1.36, 95% confidence interval 0.72 to 2.55, p = 0.3441) nor in-hospital death or stroke (odds ratio 1.50, 95% confidence interval 0.81 to 2.47, p = 0.2207). In conclusion, in this real-world TAVI registry, a “porcelain” aorta was diagnosed in almost every tenth patient. Although differences were found in its frequency among the participating hospitals, the presence of a porcelain aorta was not associated with in-hospital death or stroke.