A new European registry study published in Arrhythmia & Electrophysiology Review found that individuals who needed a permanent pacemaker (PPI) after TAVR had similar overall outcomes at one year compared to those who did not, despite experiencing a higher rate of heart failure–related hospital visits.
The study, part of the CONDUCT registry, followed 295 patients from four European centers. After using a one-to-four propensity score matching method to balance patient characteristics, researchers closely compared 160 individuals i.e., 36 who received a pacemaker within 30 days of TAVR and 124 who did not.
Most participants were elderly, with a median age of 80, and predominantly male. While there were some initial differences, like diabetes rates and heart function, these were adjusted through matching to allow fair comparison.
At one-year follow-up, the rate of major cardiac events (MACE) was not significantly different between the two groups (22.2% with PPI vs. 13.7% without, p = 0.216). However, heart failure rehospitalisation occurred more often in patients with pacemakers with 11.1% compared to just 2.4% in the non-PPI group (p = 0.046). The risk of rehospitalisation was roughly five times higher for PPI patients.