BACKGROUND: The management of Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI) patients with a small aortic annulus (SAA) postures a substantial challenge, increasing the risk of patient- prosthesis mismatch (PPM) and overall mortality. AIMS: This study aimed to compare the hemodynamic and clinical outcomes of transcatheter balloon-expandable valve (BEV) versus transcatheter self-expandable valve (SEV) in SAA. METHODS: We conducted propensity score matching (PSM) of severe AS patients with SAA who underwent trans-femoral TAVR and enrolled to the Israeli TAVR registry between the years 2008 and 2023. SAA was defined as an aortic-valve annulus area ≤ 430 mm RESULTS: The study included 1364 consecutive patients with SAA of (BEV n = 485
SEV n = 879) at a mean age of 82 ± 7 years, of whom the vast majority were female (83%). Propensity-matched groups comprised of 329 and 122 paired for the SAA and vSAA patients, respectively. As compared to BEV in the SAA and vSAA analyses, SEV showed lower rates of postprocedural of LBBB (32% vs. 22% and 41% vs. 22%
both p <
0.01, respectively), however, higher rates of major vascular complications (2% vs. 7% and 2% vs. 12%
both p <
0.01, respectively) and major or life-threatening bleeding but only in vSAA group (17% vs. 9.1%, p = 0.009). One-month mortality was higher in the SEV versus BEV in both SAA and vSAA comparisons (2% vs. 0.6%, p = 0.048 and 3% vs. 0%, p = 0.018
respectively). A nonsignificant trend of higher 5-year mortality was observed in univariate models, noted mainly in vSAA patients (22% vs. 19%, p = 0.385
24% vs. 15%, p = 0.073). CONCLUSIONS: The present analysis observed higher rates of major vascular complications and 1-month mortality in SAA and vSAA treated with SEV. A similar nonsignificant trend toward long-term mortality for the vSAA group was observed and should be evaluated in larger cohorts.