Comparison of the Carpentier-Edwards Perimount™ and St. Jude Medical Epic™ Bioprostheses for Aortic Valve Replacement—A Retrospective Echocardiographic Short-Term Study

Abstract   Objective: Stented biological prostheses show different performance related to their design and ultrastructure. Therefore, we compared the Carpentier-Edwards Perimount™ (Edwards Lifesciences, Irvine, CA, USA) and the St. Jude Medical Epic™ (SJM Epic™; St. Jude Medical Inc., St. Paul, MN, USA) prostheses with respect to their hemodynamic features. Methods: Eighty-six patients underwent aortic valve replacement for severe aortic stenosis (50 patients), aortic regurgitation (seven patients), or mixed lesion (29 patients) with these randomly assigned bioprostheses (Perimount™: 39 patients; SJM Epic™: 47 patients). Following informed consent, patients were examined postoperatively (mean 9.7 ± 4 months after surgery) with a detailed echocardiographic study, quality of life was determined by a standardized questionnaire. Results: Comparing the indexed effective orifice area (0.77 cm²/m² vs. 0.64 cm²/m²; p = 0.019), the mean pressure gradient (11.15 mmHg vs. 14.80 mmHg; p = 0.004) and the stroke-work loss (6.95% vs. 8.49%; p = 0.025), the Carpentier-Edwards Perimount™ demonstrated significantly better hemodynamic features than the SJM Epic™ prosthesis. These effects were more pronounced in the smaller prosthetic sizes. Conclusion: The Carpentier-Edwards Perimount™ prosthesis was less obstructive than the SJM Epic™ in echocardiographic controls. Patient-prosthesis mismatch as determined by indexed effective orifice area showed no impact on functional recovery.