Transcatheter aortic valve replacement: is anesthesiologic management linked to surgical outcomes?

Aortic valve replacement (AVR) is the current standard treatment for severe aortic stenosis, nonetheless, many patients are not suitable to AVR because of high risk related to advanced age, impaired cardiac function, or comorbidities. Given these considerations, transcatheter aortic valve replacement or implantation (TAVR or TAVI) has emerged in the last decade as an alternative to surgery and has become the treatment of choice for severe aortic stenosis in patients with prohibitive surgical risk. In the context of this kind of hybrid procedure, the anesthesiologist plays a central role because the choice of anesthetic technique is strongly related to clinical features of the patients and technical considerations, which must be discussed collegially with the surgeons. The choice of anesthesiologic management is different among hospitals, but it is generally based on preoperative comorbidities, procedural approach used for TAVR and even hospital logistic. Some centers used to perform TAVR under general anesthesia (GA), some else under local anesthesia plus sedation (LAS), some of them start their TAVR program under GA, but convert in LAS when the team get enough experience. Also, anesthesiologists involved in TAVR procedures must be part of a “heart team”, and should be confident with anesthesia for cardiovascular surgery, mechanical circulatory support, and with transesophageal echocardiography. The aim of this article is to provide a general overview about anesthetic techniques in TAVR and to evaluate pathways for future researches.