(Yicai) Nov. 28 -- The number of transcatheter aortic valve replacement surgeries performed in the Chinese mainland in the first 10 months of the year has reached nearly half of the number in the past 13 years, according to the latest official data.

Hospitals in the Chinese mainland carried out 11,614 TAVR procedures in the 10 months ended Oct. 31, up nearly 40 percent from last year’s total, according to the National Transcatheter Valve Therapeutics Registry recently released at the 2023 China Cardiovascular Health Conference. Some 23,980 such surgeries were performed between 2010 and last year.

TAVR is a procedure to replace an aortic valve that is narrowed and does not open fully. Valve diseases affected about 25 million people in China in 2020, 1.5 million of whom had severe aortic stenosis, for which there is no direct treatment. Conventional and minimally invasive surgeries are the main clinical practice to address aortic stenosis.

The significant increase in TAVR surgeries is due to the rapid promotion of this procedure nationwide and the systematization and standardization of valve therapies, which have cultivated more skilled personnel, Yicai learned.

The iteration of devices has also contributed to the growth of TAVR procedures in China, said Pan Wenzhi, a professor from the Department of Cardiology at Zhongshan Hospital, which is affiliated with Fudan University.

China’s Venus MedTech, MicroPort CardioFlow Medtech, Peijia Medical, and Suzhou Jiecheng Medical Technology and US’ Edwards Lifesciences and Medtronic are the six medical device makers that had their TAVR products approved in the Chinese mainland.

Pan expects the number of China’s TAVR surgeries to reach about 14,000 this year, with local manufacturers accounting for as much as 80 percent of the total market share.

Global TAVR medical device sales may grow 10 percent to USD6.7 billion this year, said Needham, an independent investment bank and asset management firm specializing in advisory services. Edwards Lifesciences and Medtronic may dominate the global TAVR market, with shares of nearly 58 percent and 29 percent, respectively.

Editors: Shi Yi, Futura Costaglione