TAVI and Post Procedural Cardiac Conduction Abnormalities.

Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is a worldwide accepted alternative for treating patients at intermediate or high risk for surgery. In recent years, the rate of complications has markedly decreased except for new-onset atrioventricular and intraventricular conduction block that remains the most common complication after TAVI. Although procedural, clinical, and electrocardiographic predisposing factors have been identified as predictors of conduction disturbances, new strategies are needed to avoid such complications, particularly in the current TAVI era that is moving quickly toward the percutaneous treatment of low-risk patients. In this article, we will review the incidence, predictive factors, and clinical implications of conduction disturbances after TAVI.

Percutaneous Direct Annuloplasty With Edge-to-Edge Technique for Mitral Regurgitation: Replicating a Complete Surgical Mitral Repair in a One-Step Procedure.

Surgical treatment of functional mitral regurgitation (MR) is usually based on the correction of both annular dilation and leaflet disease to minimize the risk of recurrence of MR at follow-up. This combined approach may also represent an interesting strategy during transcatheter mitral valve repair systems. We report a successful case of combined Cardioband (Edwards Lifesciences, Irvine, California) and MitraClip (Abbott, Santa Clara, California) implantation for the treatment of functional MR, with good acute and medium-term clinical and echocardiographic outcomes.

The future of percutaneous tricuspid valve interventions.

Tricuspid valve regurgitation has a high prevalence and, when severe, is associated with poor outcomes. Nevertheless, surgical repair or replacement (isolated or as a part of a combined procedure) is rarely performed due to high surgical risk. Therefore, there is a significant unmet clinical need for percutaneous transcatheter-based treatments. Significant development in percutaneous therapies for both aortic and mitral valve disease has been accomplished over the last two decades, while transcatheter therapies for the tricuspid valve are still at an early stage. We are today at a cross-road of new transcatheter devices that are becoming available for the treatment of tricuspid regurgitation; the current review evaluates the challenges that current and future technologies have to face in order to become a safer, less invasive and equally effective alternative to surgery.