A groundbreaking new study showed that women who underwent a special procedure called transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) had better mortality rates compared to men.

This was true even though there was a higher incidence of complications after surgery for women who had TAVR, according to a MedPageToday report.

Women were 28 percent more likley to have survived after undergoing a TAVR procedure than men. Not only that, they were 18 percent less likely to be rehospitalized even though they had higher rates of vascular complications and major bleeding comapred to men, according to the report.

The research was led by Susheel Kodali of Columbia University Medical Center and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Unfortunately, the data still isn’t sufficient to determine whether more high-risk women suffering from AS (aortic stenosis) should get TAVR instead of surgical aortic valve replacement. But it is a vital clue that could lead to further research on the issue.

It’s possible that women who had TAVR may have a greater survival rate because of better myocardial adaptation to AS in women.

Aortic stenosis is when the exit of the left ventricle of the heart begins to narrow. It can result in heart failure, loss of consciousness, and chest pain. Standing or exercise tends to exacerbate the symptoms.

In a statement last year, the American College of Cardiology describe AS as “a problem that occurs when the valve in the heart’s main artery doesn’t open fully–forces the heart to work harder to pump blood and is life-threatening over time. Valve replacement is common when this condition becomes severe, but the health profile of many patients makes standard surgical valve replacement especially risky.”

The statement went on to note: “Death rates at one year were significantly lower for the 390 TAVR patients than for the 357 patients who had open-heart surgery.”