LUS in Aortic Stenosis Patients Undergoing TAVR

1. Introduction and aims: Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) is the gold standard for the treatment of elderly patients with severe aortic valve stenosis (AS). AS causes left ventricular remodeling as well as left atrial enlargement, pulmonary artery and right ventricular changes, these changes, and whether they are reversible (reverse remodeling) are major determinants of outcome after TAVR. Heart Failure (HF) is the most frequent cause of cardiac re-hospitalization after TAVR. Most HF exacerbations are related to a progressive rise in cardiac filling pressures that precipitates pulmonary congestion and symptomatic decompensation. Traditionally, pulmonary congestion has been assessed by physical examination and chest radiography but clinical signs and symptoms of congestion are poor surrogates for ventricular filling pressures and are not reliable predictors of imminent hospitalization. Recently, lung ultrasonography (LUS) has been identified as a sensitive and semi-quantitative tool for the assessment of pulmonary congestion in HF. The technique is based on the detection of vertical echogenic artifacts arising from the pleural line, named "B-lines". The number of B-lines is associated with increased risk of adverse events during hospitalization and after hospital discharge. CLUSTER-HF Trial demonstrated that the routine incorporation of LUS during clinical follow-up of patients with recent acute decompensated HF without a surgically correctable cause, was associated with a risk reduction of adverse HF events, mainly urgent HF visits. Thus, LUS could represent a promising tool to detect pulmonary congestion related to AS. To date, there are no studies on the role of LUS in the context of AS and TAVR. The study hypothesis is that in patients with higher number of B-lines before-TAVR and after TAVR, the rate of adverse events during follow-up is higher. 2. Study design: This is a single center prospective study carried out at Fondazione Pol