The frequency and prognostic impact of fever following transcatheter aortic valve implantation.
OBJECTIVE
This study sought to explore the frequency and prognostic implications of infectious and noninfectious fever following transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI).


METHODS
We performed a retrospective cohort study including 194 consecutive patients who underwent TAVI at our institution. We identified and characterized all patients who developed fever within the first 72 h following the procedure. We determined the etiology of the fevers (infectious vs. noninfectious) and assessed their impact on in-hospital complications and 1-year mortality.


RESULTS
Following TAVI, 65 (33.5%) patients had fever (mean age 83.7 ± 3.8 years, 70.2% female). An infectious etiology was evident in only 17 of the 65 patients (26.1%) with fever, mainly due to pneumonia (52.9%) and a urinary tract infection (41.2%). No significant difference was observed in baseline characteristics, the mean fever temperature/duration, or signs of inflammatory response between infectious and noninfectious fevers. The mean hospital duration was longer (7 ± 4.8 days vs. 4.7 ± 2.4 days, p = 0.01) among patients with an infectious fever; however, fever had no impact on the 1-year mortality rate (5.9 and 4.5%, respectively, p = 0.71).


CONCLUSIONS
Our study demonstrates that, although fever was a common phenomenon after TAVI, it represented an infectious complication only in a minority of cases. Nevertheless, fever, infectious or not, had no impact on the 1-year mortality rate following TAVI.
Cardiology Department, Rabin Medical Center, Petach Tikva, Israel.
Katia
K
Orvin
Ran
R
Kornowski
Jihad
J
Bishara
Tamir
T
Bental
Amos
A
Levi
Natalie
N
Noam
Zaza
Z
Iakobishvili
Avital
A
Porter
Alex
A
Sagie
Elad
E
Goldberg
D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001024:Aortic Valve Stenosis / Q000601:surgery*; D006328:Cardiac Catheterization / Q000401:mortality*; D005260:Female; D005334:Fever / Q000209:etiology* / Q000401:mortality; D006350:Heart Valve Prosthesis; D019918:Heart Valve Prosthesis Implantation / Q000401:mortality*; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay; D008297:Male; D018410:Pneumonia, Bacterial / Q000209:etiology / Q000401:mortality; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000209:etiology* / Q000401:mortality; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014552:Urinary Tract Infections / Q000209:etiology / Q000401:mortality