Physical activity tracking in correlation to conventional heart failure monitoring assessing improvements after transcatheter mitral and tricuspid valve repair

Abstract

Heart failure (HF) patients with secondary mitral regurgitation (MR) suffer from symptoms of progressive left ventricular failure.1 Similarly, concomitant tricuspid regurgitation (TR) was associated with poor prognosis.2 Both, transcatheter mitral valve repair (TMVR) and transcatheter tricuspid valve repair (TTVR) emerged as safe techniques for the control of HF symptoms.3,4 Reliable disease monitoring in these patients is crucial to decide on the type and timing of therapies, measure the efficacy of treatment strategies, and estimate patient prognosis. Routinely available monitoring strategies include functional clinical status [New York Heart Association (NYHA) classification], standardized questionnaires for the estimation of quality of life (QoL), physical tests such as the 6-minute walk test (6MWT), and measurement of natriuretic peptides. However, each of these tests demonstrated limitations in HF. The measure of out-of-hospital daily activity assessed by activity tracking devices (ATDs) could add beneficial information to disease monitoring and was recently described in HF patients undergoing transcatheter valve repair.5 However, the feasibility and reliability of ATD measures in these patients as well as the correlation to conventional HF monitoring are currently unknown.