In-hospital outcomes and cost-effectiveness of transcatheter aortic valve replacement among younger patients: a double/debiased machine learning approach using electronic health records in Germany

Limitations

• Based on administrative data, making coding errors inevitable.
• Risk adjustment may not encompass all necessary parameters, leading to potential residual confounding.
• Lack of crucial clinical data such as echocardiographic results or anatomical details (e.g., inability to differentiate tricuspid from bicuspid aortic stenosis).
• Use of an approximate, best-case estimate for the logistic EuroSCORE due to missing data.
• Cost perspective is limited to in-hospital only, without linkage to post-discharge events or downstream costs.
• Absence of specific data regarding the exact model or generation of the device used.