July 9, 2013 — Researchers have announced the results of a clinical study that shows a key difference in the patient’s baseline heart size and function following transcatheter valve replacement (TAVR) that may help predict their medical outcomes. Previous work by these researchers showed that even mild paravalvular aortic regurgitation (PAR), detected by echocardiograms performed on these patients, appears to correlate with increased mortality. The current study revealed that certain baseline characteristics found on the echocardiograms could help predict which patients were more likely to have PAR.
“This is an exciting discovery that will help us better stratify patients for closer follow-up care,” said Rebecca Hahn, M.D., FASE, the study’s primary investigator. Hahn and her colleagues analyzed 465 patients from the PARTNER trial, combined with another 1,757 patients to show the association between increased PAR and the significant difference in baseline echo parameters. The patients’ echocardiograms indicated larger ventricular volumes and mass, lower ejection fractions and more regurgitant valvular disease, all of which appear to be harbingers of underlying issues that influenced the patient’s long-term outcome following the procedure.
Researchers on the study, "Differences in Baseline Echo Parameters in Patients with Varying Severity of Paravalvular Regurgitation Following Transcatheter Valve Replacement," included Rebecca Hahn, Susheel Kodali, Mathew Williams, Tom McAndrew and Martin Leon from Columbia University, New York, N.Y.; Pamela S. Douglas from Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C.; Philippe Pibarot from Laval University, Quebec, QC, Canada; William Stewart from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio; and Neil Weissman from Medstar Health Research Institute, Washington, D.C.
For more information: www.asecho.org
April 14, 2026 
