Aims: The impact of the severity of coronary artery disease (CAD) and percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) on outcomes after transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) remains a matter of debate. We therefore performed a meta-analysis to evaluate the impact of CAD, of its severity and of PCI on mortality after TAVI.
Methods and results: All published studies evaluating the impact of CAD on 30-day and one-year mortality after TAVI at multivariable analysis were included. The primary endpoint was the impact of CAD severity (assessed with the SYNTAX score [SS]) on one-year mortality by pooling with logarithmic transformation results of multivariable adjusted effect estimates from each individual study. Secondary endpoints were the impact of the presence of CAD on 30-day and one-year mortality at multivariable analysis and the impact of residual SYNTAX score (rSS) on one-year mortality at multivariable analysis. A total of 8,334 patients with a median age of 81.3 (81-82) years and STS score of 6.2% (IQR 6.0-6.7) from 13 studies were included. Patients with an SS >22 showed higher one-year mortality at multivariable analysis (OR 1.71 [1.24-2.36]). The presence of CAD did not impact on 30-day and one-year mortality at multivariable analysis (respectively, OR 1.57 [0.71-3.46] and OR 1.25 [0.74-2.11]). Regarding PCI, patients with rSS <8 showed lower one-year mortality (OR 0.34 [0.012-0.93]).
Conclusions: The risk of death after TAVI is closely related to the complexity of CAD. Patients with an SS >22 present higher mortality. SS may represent a useful tool to select patients undergoing TAVI who could benefit from coronary revascularisation. In this regard, reaching an rSS <8 reduced one-year mortality. Randomised controlled trials are needed to confirm these results.