Shockwave Lithotripsy of Calcific Stenosis of the Distal Abdominal Aorta to Facilitate Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement

The transfemoral approach for transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) is superior to alternative access strategies. Only transfemoral access has been shown to have better clinical outcomes than surgical aortic valve replacement. In our patient, severe calcification of the distal abdominal aorta posed difficulty in using transfemoral access for TAVR. We applied intravascular lithotripsy (IVL) to the distal abdominal aorta to achieve necessary luminal gain facilitating bioprosthetic aortic valve deployment. (c) 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.