Tricuspid valve disease prevalence and the impact of tricuspid valve surgery on cardiovascular events and hospital resource use in medicare beneficiaries

Background Tricuspid valve disease (TVD) is presumed common, however, little is known about its prevalence or the impact of tricuspid valve surgery (TVS) on healthcare resource use. Methods To describe the prevalence of TVD and assess the impact of TVS on resource utilization, Medicare Fee-ForService beneficiaries from 2011 -2019 were assessed for the prevalence of non-rheumatic TVD. Hospital costs and rates of all-cause, cardiovascular (CV), and heart failure (HF) hospitalizations were compared in the 3 months pre TVS to acute (0-3 months) and chronic (3 -12 months) post TVS periods. Results Among 80.3 million beneficiaries from 2011 - 2019 Q1, over 700,000 (0.9%) had non-rheumatic TVD with 1.4% undergoing TVS. Thirty-day and 1 year mortality after TVS was 5.5% to15.5%. Compared with pre-surgery, CV and HF hospitalizations decreased from 0.12 to 0.08 per patient-month (P <.001), and 0.06 to 0.04 (P <.001) acutely. All-cause hospitalizations increased from 0.18 per patient-month to 0.23 per patient-month acutely post-surgery (P <.001), before decreasing to 0.09 per patient-month chronically (P <.001). Hospital costs increased from $2,174 per patient-month to $4,171 per patient-month acutely (P < .001), before falling to $1,441 per patient-month (P < .001) chronically. Lower costs for HF and CV hospitalization in both acute (P = .028 and P < .001, respectively) and chronic (P < .001 for both) periods were observed. Conclusions TVS is associated with reduced CV and HF hospitalizations and associated hospital costs. Future work should determine whether transcatheter tricuspid valve repair offers similar or additional benefits.

Automated summary

This study describes the prevalence of non-rheumatic TVD and assesses the impact of TVS on resource utilization. The study found that TVS is associated with reduced CV and HF hospitalizations and associated hospital costs.