With the development of transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) an alternative has emerged to an established surgical treatment of aortic stenosis. After initial success in treating patients with prohibitively high surgical risk, we have witnessed recent expansion of the method on patient groups of intermediate and low risk, a “traditional” surgical cohort, with long experience and excellent results of surgical treatment.

The paper involves a short history of the TAVI procedure development, review of pivotal and recent literature on the topic. Moreover, it discusses the future expansion of the method and its impact on surgical AVR, as well as critically appraises certain aspects of the literature (1, 2), comparing them to own and surgical literature results.