BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Cardiovasc. Med.
Sec. Cardiovascular Imaging
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcvm.2025.1626497
This article is part of the Research TopicUltrasound in Cardiovascular Care: Preventive, Diagnostic, and Monitoring RolesView all articles
Prognostic role of pre-procedural lung ultrasound in patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve implantation
Provisionally accepted
Guilherme Pinheiro Machado1*
Pedro Castilhos de Freitas Crivelaro1Gustavo Neves de Araujo2Guilherme Heiden Telo1Luiz Carlos Corsetti Bergoli1Marina Saadi1Julia Carvalho da Silva3Camila Porto Cardoso4Wagner Azevedo3Felipe Costa Fuchs1Marco Vugman Wainstein1- 1Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre, Brazil
- 2Unimed Grande Florianópolis, Florianópolis, Brazil
- 3Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil
- 4Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre, Brazil
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Background: Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is the preferred treatment for patients with severe aortic stenosis (AS) in patients > 75 years. Lung ultrasound (LUS) has emerged as a noninvasive tool for assessing pulmonary congestion and risk stratification in cardiovascular disease, especially heart failure, however, its prognostic role in TAVI remains to be clarified. Therefore, our aim was to investigate the association between pre-procedural LUS findings and clinical outcomes in patients undergoing TAVI.Methods: We conducted a prospective cohort study of 116 patients undergoing TAVI from 2021 to 2024. Lung ultrasound was performed immediately before the procedure. Patients were classified as having "wet lungs" (≥1 positive zone) or "dry lungs" (no positive zones). Exclusion criteria were lack of consent or absence of pre-procedural ultrasound assessment The primary endpoint was a composite of all-cause mortality and heart failure hospitalization within 12 months. Secondary endpoints included VARC-2-defined complications.Results: Among 85 patients included in the final analysis the mean age was 80 ± 11 years, 51.8% were male, and 55 (64.7%) had wet lungs. Patients with wet lungs had higher STS-PROM scores (5.2% vs. 3.0%, p<0.001), but there were no significant differences in the primary outcome (3.8% vs. 6.7%, p=0.55).Morover, procedural characteristics and complication rates were similar between groups.Conclusions: Pre-procedural LUS was not associated with worse outcomes following TAVI. While LUS may reflect comorbidity burden, its isolated prognostic value in this setting appears limited.
Keywords: Transcatheter aortic valve replacement, All-cause mortality, aortic stenosis, Lung ultrasound (LUS), Heart Failure
Received: 13 May 2025; Accepted: 10 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Pinheiro Machado, Crivelaro, Araujo, Telo, Bergoli, Saadi, Silva, Cardoso, Azevedo, Fuchs and Wainstein. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Guilherme Pinheiro Machado, Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre, Brazil
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