Immediate Results and Clinical Follow-up of Patients Undergoing Transcatheter Aortic-Valve Implantation

ABSTRACTBackgroundOne third of the elderly population with symptomatic calcified aortic stenosis cannot undergo surgery due to their high operative risk. The transcatheter aortic-valve implantation (TAVI) has emerged as an alternative therapy for this group of patients.MethodsAll patients submitted to TAVI from November 2008 to April 2012 were included in our study. We report the baseline clinical characteristics, procedural data, hospital outcomes and clinical follow-up of this population. Definitions were based on the Valve Academic Research Consortium criteria.ResultsTAVI was performed in 23 patients, with 79 ± 6.7 years of age, and 56% were female. The EuroSCORE was 20.4 ± 11.1%. The CoreValve® prosthesis was used in 19 patients (82.6%) and the Edwards SAPIEN™ valve was used in the remaining ones. Procedure success rate was 96%. The mean follow-up was 22 ± 12.8 months, with 6 deaths (26.1%) in this period, 3 of which were observed in the first 30 days (13%) and other 2 (21.7%) by the end of the first year. One patient had a transient ischemic attack during hospitalization (4.3%), but there were no episodes of stroke or myocardial infarction in the periprocedural period or in the follow-up. The composite safety endpoint at 30 days was observed in 5 patients (21.7%) and the composite efficacy endpoint at 12 months was 78.3%.ConclusionsThe results of this study demonstrate that TAVI is an attractive procedure for the treatment of patients with calcified aortic stenosis and high operative risk

A Cidade Perdida da Bahia: mito e arqueologia no Brasil Império

O artigo investiga as origens do mais famoso mito arqueológico brasileiro, "a cidade perdida da Bahia", e sua importância paradigmática para o segundo império.<br>This article examines the "lost city of Bahia", the most famous Brazilian archaeological myth and its paradigmatic importance