Recent Development of Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI): Reality in Malaysia

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the major cause of death in many countries around the world especially in Malaysia. One of the most common CVD is heart valve diseases specifically aortic stenosis (AS) disease that occurs in elderly heart disease patients. Surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) is known as one of the most popular techniques for replacing new heart valves. For the past 15 years, transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) has become the current emerging solution and a good alternative to surgery for patients at very high or prohibitive surgical risk. TAVI has received great attention from broad research studies and clinical experiences due to the lower operative risk with shorter time of recovery compared to surgical aortic valve (SAV) replacement. This paper will review two TAVI devices (Edwards SAPIEN Valve TM and Medtronic CoreValve) that have seen wide application over the past 10 years and discuss the Malaysian practices on TAVI in accessing relevant information with evidence-based recommendations from clinical updates. Ultimately, these discussions will pave the way for new research areas for the improvement of future TAVI technology.