Edwards Lifesciences said the FDA has approved its transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) therapy, the SAPIEN 3 platform, for severe aortic stenosis (AS) patients without symptoms.
“There is an urgent need to change practice and TAVR guidelines for the treatment of aortic stenosis patients, which currently recommend ‘watchful waiting’ until symptoms develop,” said Philippe Genereux, M.D., director of the structural heart program at Gagnon Cardiovascular Institute, Morristown Medical Center, Morristown, New Jersey. “As we saw in the EARLY TAVR trial, patients originally designated as asymptomatic became symptomatic in sudden and unpredictable ways, underscoring the importance of early evaluation by a heart team to improve patient outcomes and benefit the healthcare system.”
The company said the EARLY TAVR trial was the first randomized, controlled trial designed to evaluate TAVR compared to watchful waiting for patients with asymptomatic severe AS. With a median follow-up of 3.8 years, 26.8% of the 455 patients in the TAVR arm experienced death, stroke, or unplanned cardiovascular hospitalization, compared with 45.3% of the 446 patients in the clinical surveillance arm. The data were published last year in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), marking the ninth NEJM publication on Edwards TAVR.
"This approval is a powerful opportunity to streamline patient care and improve the efficiency of the healthcare system,” said Larry Wood, Edwards’ corporate vice president and group president, Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement and Surgical. “We are proud to partner with leading physicians to advance our knowledge of this deadly disease with high quality science and optimize the treatment pathway for patients.”
Edwards said that more than 1 million patients have been treated with SAPIEN valves worldwide.
