Heart Valve Replacement Via TAVR Rises Ninefold in Patients Under 70

Younger heart patients are increasingly choosing a less invasive valve fix. A study in JSCAI, also presented at TCT 2026, shows transcatheter aortic valve replacement procedures rising ninefold among patients younger than seventy at the Baylor Scott and White health system over the past decade. The finding reflects changing patterns in valve care.

Researchers reviewed 5,755 aortic valve procedures across eleven years, including 1,008 TAVR and 4,747 surgical replacements. Annual TAVR volume in patients under seventy climbed from 15 in 2014 to 134 in 2024, with the sixty-to-sixty-nine group growing from 14 procedures to 121. Surgical valve replacement remained far more common overall in each group.

Over time, acute kidney injury and bleeding after TAVR declined, while stroke and thirty-day mortality showed no significant trends. Surgical replacement remained the dominant approach in every age group, and because the data come from one health system, the authors note the findings may not apply everywhere. Single-centre data limit generalisation.