Frailty and Cognitive Function Assessment of TAVI Patients

Aortic stenosis (AS) is the most common valve disease among the adult population, in the majority of the cases it only requires treatment in advanced age. Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) has become available as an alternative treatment for very high risk or even inoperative patients who are suffering from symptomatic aortic stenosis. Until now it has been learnt that there are group of patients who are in a very bad condition and who are so frail that they do not benefit from TAVI. These patients have worse survival rate and more importantly poor quality of life in spite of a successful procedure. Cardiac surgery risk scores like Society of Thoracic surgery score (STS) and EUROSCORE are less accurate in aging high risk people. In elderly it is principal to make differentiation between utility and futility. On the other hand, beside frailty status the main barrier to TAVI is the risk of neurological impairment. Neurological injury and impairment in TAVI can occur as cerebrovascular event (CVE) and/or neurocognitive dysfunction. The two neurocognitive dysfunctions - post-operative delirium (POD) and post-operative cognitive dysfunction (POCD). Most cases remain undetected although clinically could be apparent or silent. The neurological injury can be observed and/or detected by neuroimaging techniques and cognitive trajectories. A well established and validated frailty score based on relatively simple and feasible tests could help in our everyday practice to evaluate the prognosis of elderly people undergoing TAVI and to determine those patients who really benefit from the procedure.