Quantitative aortography for assessing aortic regurgitation after transcatheter aortic valve implantation: results of the multicentre ASSESS-REGURGE Registry

Aims: Quantitative aortography using videodensitometry is a valuable tool for quantifying paravalvular regurgitation after TAVI, especially in the minimalist approach - without general anaesthesia. However, retrospective assessment of aortograms showed moderate feasibility of assessment. We sought to determine the prospective feasibility of quantitative aortography after a protocol of acquisition.Methods and results: This was a multicentre registry in Japan, Canada, the Netherlands and Germany including consecutive patients with Heart Team indication to undergo TAVI over a median period of 12 months. Operators performed final aortograms according to a pre-planned projection (either by CT or visually - Teng's rule). An independent core laboratory (Cardialysis) analysed all images for feasibility and for regurgitation assessment. From the four centres included in the present analysis, a total of 354 patients underwent TAVI following the acquisition protocol and all the aortograms were analysed by the core lab. The analyses were feasible in 95.5% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 93.2% to 97.5%) of the cases. This rate of analysable assessment was significantly higher than the feasibility in previous validation studies, such as in the RESPOND population (95.5% vs. 57.5%, p<0.0001). No differences were observed among different planning strategies (CT 96.5% vs. Teng's rule 93%, p=0.159; or Circle 98.5% vs. 3mensio 95.8% vs. Teng's rule 93%, p=0.247).Conclusions: ASSESS-REGURGE showed a high feasibility of assessment of regurgitation with quantitative aortography with protocoled acquisition. This may be of great importance for quantifying regurgitation in TAVI procedures (optimisation, guidance of post-dilatation), and in future clinical trials, in order to address sealing features of novel devices for TAVI objectively.