Surgical treatment is the gold standard treatment of functional tricuspid regurgitation (FTR) but this carries high risks of morbidity and mortality. Percutaneous procedures are an attractive alternative to surgery for selected patients deemed to be high-risk surgical candidates. A number of tricuspid transcatheter devices have been developed to treat FTR, but at present, evidence of their efficacy and safety is scarce. Preliminary data have shown promising results, but ongoing and future studies will provide a clearer picture of the benefits of these new techniques.
Tricuspid regurgitation is frequent and is most often caused by annular dilatation and leaflet tethering from adverse right ventricular remodeling in response to several disease processes (functional tricuspid regurgitation), while primary/organic tricuspid valve regurgitation is less common. Surgical intervention for tricuspid regurgitation is usually performed concomitantly to left-sided heart valve surgery. In isolated significant tricuspid regurgitation, however, many patients are left unoperated as they commonly are considered at very high or prohibitive surgical risk. Moreover, the risk versus benefit data are not as well-established as compared to other valve disease. Multiple novel transcatheter therapies have now begun to emerge with the aim to treat tricuspid regurgitation less invasively. For most new interventional procedures, current trials are designed to prove efficacy and safety. In the foreseeable future, however, patients with significant MR can likely be offered a multifaceted palette of minimally invasive transcatheter options in addition to conventional surgery, which will allow to treat more patients in need. These current developments make tricuspid valve disease and its therapy an exciting field of study.
Aim. Noninvasive identification of haemodialysis patients at high risk of cardiovascular events and death might improve their outcome. Growth differentiation factor 15 is a prognostic biomarker in multiple disease entities, including cardiovascular disease. The aim of this study was to assess the association between plasma GDF-15 and mortality in a cohort of haemodialysis patients. Methods. Circulating GDF-15 was measured in 30 patients after a regular haemodialysis session, followed by a clinical follow-up for all-cause death. Measurements were performed using the Proseek Multiplex Cardiovascular disease panels (Olink Proteomics AB) and validated using the Elecsys GDF-15 electrochemiluminescence immunoassay on a Cobas E801 analyzer (Roche Diagnostics). Results. During a median of 38 months, 9 patients (30%) died. Seven deaths occurred in the group of patients with a circulating GDF-15 above the median and two in the group with lower GDF-15. Mortality was significantly higher in patients with circulating GDF-15 levels above the median, log-rankP = 0.044. The performance of circulating GDF-15 to predict long-term mortality has an area under the ROC curve of 0.76, P = 0.028. Prevalence of most relevant comorbidities and the Charlson comorbidity index were similar across the two groups. A high agreement with a correlation among both diagnostic methods was observed (Spearman’s rho = 0.83,
P
<
0.001
). Conclusion. Plasma GDF-15 displays promising prognostic properties for the prediction of long-term survival beyond clinical parameters in patients on maintenance haemodialysis.
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