Hamandi M, Amiens P, Grayburn PA, et al. - RESearchers sought to analyze the correlation between thoracic aortic calcification (TAC) burden and 1-year all-cause mortality in patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) in a US population. A retrospective review of a total of 431 TAVI procedures was conducted at Baylor Scott & White-The Heart Hospital, Plano, Texas from July 2015 through July 2017. Of these, 374 (81%) patients had evaluation of TAC. They identified overall 30-day and 1-year all-cause mortality of 1% and 10%, respectively. In unadjusted and adjusted Cox regression analysis, patients with high TAC (> 2.9 cm³) had a significant increase in mortality compared with low TAC (< 1.6 cm³), but it was not significant compared with moderate TAC (1.6 – 2.9 cm³) group. TAC is identified to be a predictor of late mortality after TAVI. In conclusion, addition of TAC to preoperative evaluation may yield an objective, reproducible, and potentially widely available tool that can aid in shared-decision making.