Published in Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions (2025)

Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is an established treatment for aortic stenosis (AS), but common comorbidities including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), atrial fibrillation (AF), and heart failure (HF) can produce symptoms that overlap with those of AS, making it difficult to determine how much benefit patients will gain from the procedure.

This multicentre study by van Bergeijk et al. set out to clarify exactly that: how do these comorbidities affect symptom improvement and long-term outcomes following TAVI?

As part of the analysis, transthoracic echocardiography data from the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG) was analysed using Us2.ai's fully automated, deep learning-based echocardiography software (version 2.0.0), supporting efficient and validated cardiac assessment at scale.

The findings suggest that patients carrying one or more of these conditions experience meaningfully less symptomatic relief after TAVI compared to those without them, an important consideration for patient counselling and pre-procedural shared decision-making.

Why it matters: As TAVI becomes more widely used across a broader population, understanding which patients are most likely to benefit symptomatically is critical for setting realistic expectations and optimising patient selection. Studies like this demonstrate how AI-powered echocardiography analysis can play a role in generating the clinical evidence needed to guide better care.

 

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van Bergeijk, K. H., Venema, C. S., Ophuis, B., Plekkenpol, L. H., Tomei, M., Al‐Barwary, H., Tromp, J., Hummel, Y. M., Ouwerkerk, W., van den Heuvel, A. F. M., van der Werf, H. W., Douglas, Y. L., Lanz, J., Stortecky, S., Tomii, D., Pilgrim, T., Windecker, S., Pancaldi, E., Pagnesi, M., & Adamo, M. (2025). Less Symptom Improvement in Patients Undergoing TAVI With Concomitant COPD, Atrial Fibrillation and Heart Failure. Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions, 106(3), 1828–1836. https://doi.org/10.1002/ccd.70003

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