New York City-based Mount Sinai researchers have developed the first risk score to predict mortality for patients with atrial fibrillation who have undergone successful transcatheter aortic valve replacements.
The trial, which was the largest of its kind, examined 1,426 patients across 173 centers in 14 countries to compare the safety and efficacy of different therapies, according to an Aug. 28 news release from the health system. Researchers followed patients who'd undergone TAVR for up to a year after their procedures to identify predictors of mortality and assign risk levels to each predictor. Findings were presented Aug. 28 at the European Society of Cardiology Congress.
"Our study focuses solely on high-risk TAVR patients with atrial fibrillation, which is a well-recognized surrogate of unfavorable prognosis," George Dangas, MD, PhD, lead investigator and professor of medicine and director of cardiovascular innovation at the Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
"Although past research has been mostly focused on procedure risks, this new risk assessment tool focuses on how to stratify patients after completion of successful TAVR when they are ready for discharge, to improve outcomes."