• M Falcone, A Russo, M Mancone, G Carriero, G Mazzesi, F Miraldi, M Pennacchi, F Pugliese, L Tritapepe, V Vullo, F Fedele, G Sardella, and M Venditti.
• Department of Public Health and Infectious Diseases, "Sapienza" University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
• Clin. Microbiol. Infect. 2014 Aug 1;20(8):758-63.

AbstractTranscatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) has been proposed to treat older surgical high-risk patients with severe symptomatic aortic stenosis. There are no data regarding short-term and long-term infectious complications in these patients. The objective of this study was to define the incidence, aetiology and outcome of early and late infectious complications following TAVI compared with patients >65 years old undergoing traditional surgical aortic replacement (SAR). This was a prospective observational study evaluating all consecutive patients who underwent TAVI or SAR. Follow up was performed up to 1 year after the procedure of valve implantation. Fifty-one patients underwent TAVI and were compared with 102 patients who underwent SAR. Compared with SAR patients, those who underwent TAVI had lower incidence of early post-operative (11.7% vs 26.4%, p 0.04), intermediate (5.9% vs 17.6%, p 0.01) and late (7.8% vs 11.7%, p 0.03) infections. Among SAR patients the most common infections were bloodstream infections, pneumonias, urinary tract infections and sternal wound infections. Patients who underwent TAVI had a longer survival without infection (358 days vs 312.9, p 0.006). There were no significant differences in 12-month crude survival between the two study populations. Despite a high frequency of coexisting illnesses, patients undergoing TAVI develop few infectious complications. TAVI appears to be a reasonable and safe option in high-risk patients with severe symptomatic aortic stenosis.© 2013 The Authors Clinical Microbiology and Infection © 2013 European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.

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