Abstract 12572: Early Surgical Treatment versus Initial Conservative Management for Asymptomatic Severe and Very Severe Aortic Stenosis: A Meta-analysis

Abstract

Background: Although current guidelines generally recommend watchful waiting strategy for patients with asymptomatic severe aortic stenosis (AS) until symptoms develop, the optimal timing of surgical intervention remains controversial. Objective: This study aimed to compare the outcomes of early surgery vs. conservative strategy for patients with asymptomatic severe AS. Methods: MEDLINE and EMBASE were searched through February, 2020 to identify clinical trials that investigatedearly surgery and conservative strategy for patients with asymptomatic severe AS. From each study, we extracted the hazard ratio (HR) of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality. Subgroup analyses were conducted by dividing into severe AS (peak aortic jet velocity [Vmax] ≥4.0 m/s, mean aortic pressure gradient [PG] ≥40 mmHg, or aortic valve area [AVA] ≤1.0 cm 2 ) and very severe AS (Vmax ≥4.5 m/s, mean PG ≥50 mmHg, or AVA ≤0.75 cm 2 ) groups. Results: 1 randomized controlled, 7 observational trials were identified. Pooled analyses demonstrated that all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality for early surgery were significantly lower compared to conservative strategy (HR [95% Confidence Interval [CI]] =0.49 [0.36-0.68]; P <0.0001, HR [95% CI] =0.42 [0.22-0.82]; P =0.01, respectively). Subgroup analyses showed significant reduction for early surgery in all-cause mortality (severe AS: HR [95% CI] =0.52 [0.35-0.78]; P =0.001, very severe AS: HR [95% CI] =0.38 [0.17-0.85]; P =0.02). Conclusions: We demonstrated that early surgery was associated with significant reduction in all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in patients with severe AS. Further randomized trials are warranted to confirm our findings.