A "less invasive" heart surgery might actually make your main artery swell up way faster than if they just did open surgery.
April 3, 2026
Original Paper
Comparative Study of Postoperative Aortic Dilation Following Transcatheter Versus Surgical Aortic Valve Replacement in Patients with Bicuspid Aortic Valve
SSRN · 6504661
The Takeaway
TAVI is a popular catheter-based alternative to open-heart surgery, but for patients with a common valve deformity, it appears to accelerate dangerous arterial stretching. This means patients might be choosing an easier recovery today at the cost of a much bigger risk later.
From the abstract
Objectives: This study aimed to compare the postoperative aortic growth rates between patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) and isolated surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) in patients with bicuspid aortic valve (BAV) disease. <div> <br> </div> <div> Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted involving 270 BAV patients (165 SAVR, 105 TAVI). Confounders were selected using a structured process combining directed acyclic graph (DAG) analysis and LASSO reg