Maissa El-Qendouci: Optimizing Iron Deficiency Diagnosis in TAVR
Maissa El-Qendouci, Team Coordinator of TAVI Care and Cure Student Research Team at Erasmus MC, shared a post on LinkedIn about a recent article she and her colleagues co-authored, published in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions, adding:
“Excited to share that our research on iron deficiency criteria for patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) has now been published in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions!
Iron deficiency is highly prevalent in patients undergoing TAVR, but there is still no consensus on which definition of iron deficiency is most clinically relevant.
We evaluated 565 consecutive TAVR patients and compared three commonly used diagnostic definitions of iron deficiency to determine which best predicted persistent symptoms and 1-year mortality after TAVR.
Key findings:
- Iron deficiency was present in 51–57 percent of patients, depending on the definition used.
- Serum iron less than or equal to 13 μmol/L was the only criterion independently associated with both persistent symptoms at 6 weeks and 1-year mortality after TAVR.
- Transferrin saturation (TSAT) less than or equal to 20 percent was only associated with persistent symptoms at 6 weeks.
- The heart failure guideline definition of iron deficiency was not associated with either outcome.
- These findings identify serum iron as a clinically meaningful marker for risk stratification and for selecting patients in future iron supplementation trials.
Our study highlights that the way we define iron deficiency matters and that refining diagnostic criteria may improve both patient selection and future therapeutic strategies in the TAVR population.
A sincere thank you to all co-authors and colleagues who contributed to this work. Jeannette Goudzwaard, Madelon de Beer, Lucas Uchoa de Assis, Antigone Kostea, Dian Huurman, Stefan Van Gorsel, Isabella Kardys, Joost Daemen, Nicolas Van Mieghem, Francesco Mattace-Raso, and a very special thank you to Rutger-Jan Nuis for his excellent guidance and mentorship throughout this project.”
Title: Iron Deficiency Criteria for Patients Undergoing Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement
Authors: Maissa El-Qendouci, Jeannette Goudzwaard, Madelon de Beer–Leentfaar, Lucas Uchoa de Assis, Antigone Kostea, Dian Huurman, Stefan van Gorsel, Isabella Kardys, Joost Daemen, Nicolas M. Van Mieghem, Francesco Mattace Raso, Rutger-Jan Nuis

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