Stenoses, Aortic clinical trials

Sedation or General Anesthesia During TAVR

Transcatheter aortic valve replacement TAVR is become the reference method for patients with severe aortic stenosis who are contraindicated or at risk for surgical aortic replacement. Initially performed under general anesthesia (GA), recent developpement of minimalist approach of TAVR include the use of local anesthesia (LA) with or without conscious sedation (CS) associated with full percutaneous access and no routine transoesophageal echocardiography (T0E). The aim is to simplify the procedure and to allow fast recovery of patients with early discharge and reduced cost. Evidence guiding the decision of whether to perform TAVR under GA or LA-CS is limited to non-randomized trials and registry data Current evidence is however limited by probable patient selection bias, methodological variability between studies, various methods of anesthesia and a lack of agreement regarding appropriate clinical end-points. The potential benefits of TAVR with LA include reduced procedure time, shorter intensive care unit (ICU) length of stay, reduced need for intraprocedural vasopressor support, and the potential to perform the procedure without the direct presence of an anesthetist for cost-saving reasons. As LA with CS is preferred with good results in main centers, GA may be useful to facilitate intraprocedural TOE which is necessary in case of intraprocedural complications and may facilitate the procedure for the physician particularly when the patient is anxious or disturbed. A resulted better concentration without precipitation may influence the outcomes in term of valve positioning. The patient comfort could also be better during femoral puncture or rapid pacing. The aim of the study is to compare transfemoral TAVR under general anesthesia (experimental group) versus local anaesthesia with sedation (control group) with a safety primary combined end point of adverse events at 72 h follow-up (hemodynamic parameters and VARC 3 criteria). Secondary end points include hospitalization length, satisfaction of the patients and operators and 30 days mortality. The hypothesis is a non inferoirity of the GA staregy regarding the primary end point.