The Influence of Charlson Comorbidity Index on procedural characteristics, VARC-2 endpoints and 30-day mortality among patients who undergo Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation

Background: Aortic stenosis (AS) is a common valvular abnormality and TAVI is being increasingly used to treat patients considered too high risk for conventional surgery. We aimed to assess the prevalence of comorbid conditions in patients undergoing Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) using Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) and to assess their impact on clinical and procedural outcomes.
Methods: We analyzed 158 patients who underwent a TAVI at our institution between June 2009 and September 2015 to define their co-morbid burden as measured with CCI, and study its impact on procedural characteristics and mortality at 30-days.
Results: 158 patients with a mean age of 82±8 years and a mean CCI score of 2.67 underwent a TAVI. Only 12/158 patients had a CCI of 0. The commonest cardiovascular comorbidities were previous myocardial infarction (24%), congestive heart failure (15%) and diabetes mellitus (23%) whilst the commonest non-cardiovascular comorbidities were renal disease (46%) and COPD (29%). After multivariable adjustment, CCI was not independently associated with adverse clinical outcomes. The addition of CCI to scoring systems such as Logistic EuroScore (LES) and Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) risk models improved the area under the curve from 0.75 (95%CI:0.44-1.00) and 0.83 (95%CI: 0.64-1.00) to 0.78 (95%CI:0.53-1.00) and 0.89 (95%CI:0.78-1.00) respectively.
Conclusions: The burden of comorbid conditions in patients undergoing TAVI is significant. CCI score was not independently associated with a higher risk of death but can be useful in addition to LES and STS risk models in informing decision making on selection of patients for TAVI.