Getting safely in and out of a transcatheter aortic valve implantation procedure vascular complications according to the valvular academic research consortium criteria.

Published in January 2011, the aims of the Valvular Academic Research Consortium (VARC) were to arrive at a consensus: 1) on the most appropriate clinical endpoints reflecting device and patient effectiveness and safety; and 2) to standardize the definition of endpoints for valverelated clinical trials (2). This multidisciplinary endeavor brought together interventional cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, noninvasive cardiologists, regulatory bodies, professional societies, and industry with the hope to facilitate the reporting, communication, and evaluation of this new catheter-based therapy. The goal of VARC was not to establish “utopian-like” definitions but to arrive at a consensual agreement based on state-of-the-art practices and materials. In this issue of JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions, Hayashida et al. (3) investigated the incidence, predictors, and impact of VARC-related vascular complications in 127 patients undergoing transfemoral implantation with the