Open thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm (TAAA) repair produced respectable early outcomes, although preoperative and intraoperative factors were found to influence risk, according to Dr. Joseph S. Coselli, who presented the results of the study he and his colleagues at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston performed at the annual meeting of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery.

They analyzed data from 3,309 open TAAA repairs performed between October 1986 and December 2014.

“I have been very fortunate to have spent my entire career at Baylor College of Medicine, the epicenter of aortic surgery in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, as well as to have been mentored by Dr. E. Stanley Crawford, who was arguably the finest aortic surgeon of his era. Since transitioning from Dr. Crawford’s surgical practice to my own surgical practice, we have kept his pioneering spirit alive by developing a multimodal strategy for thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm repair that is based on the Crawford extent of repair and our evolving investigation. We sought to describe our series of over 3,000 TAAA repairs and to identify predictors of early death and other adverse postoperative outcomes,” said Dr. Coselli.

The median patient age was around 67 years, and the repairs involved acute or subacute aortic dissection in about 5% of the cases. Nearly 31% of the case involved chronic dissection, with nearly 22% emergent or urgent repairs and around 5% ruptured aneurysms. Connective tissue disorders were present in roughly 10% of patients. “Operatively, we tend to reserve surgical adjuncts for use in the most-extensive repairs, namely extents I and II TAAA repair; intercostal or lumbar artery reattachment was used in just over half of the repairs, left heart bypass (LHB) was used in around 45% of patients, cold renal perfusion was performed in 58%. and cerebrospinal fluid drainage (CSFD) was used in 45%,” said Dr. Coselli.

There was substantial atherosclerotic disease in older patients, and in nearly 41% of repairs, a visceral vessel procedure was performed.

Unlike many aortic centers that routinely use deep hypothermic circulatory arrest (HCA) for extensive TAAA repair, Dr. Coselli reserved this approach for a small number of highly complex repairs (1.4%) in which the aorta could not be safely clamped.

Of the more than a thousand most extensive (i.e., Crawford extent II) repairs, intercostal/lumbar artery reattachment was used in the vast majority (88%), LHB in 82%, and CSFD in 61%. They used multivariable analysis to identify predictors of operative (30-day or in-hospital) mortality and adverse event, a composite outcome comprising operative death and permanent (present at discharge) spinal cord deficit, renal failure, or stroke, according to Dr. Coselli.

Their results showed an operative mortality rate of 7.5%, a 30-day death rate of 4.8%, with the adverse event outcome occurring in about 14% of repairs. A video of his presentation is available at the AATS website.

The statistically significant predictors of operative death were rupture; renal insufficiency, symptoms, procedures targeting visceral vessels, increasing age, and increasing clamp time, while extent IV repair (the least extensive form of TAAA repair) was inversely associated with death. Their analysis showed that the significant predictors of adverse event were use of HCA, renal insufficiency, rupture, extent II repair, visceral vessel procedures, urgent or emergent repair, increasing age, and increasing clamp time. In addition, they used multivariable analysis to identify predictors of renal failure and paraplegia.

In the 3,060 early survivors, roughly 7% had a life-altering complication at discharge: Nearly 3% of patients had renal failure necessitating dialysis, slightly more than 1% had a unresolved stroke, and about 4% had unresolved paraplegia or paraparesis. Repair failure, primarily pseudoaneurysm, or patch aneurysm, occurred after nearly 3% of repairs, said Dr. Coselli.

Outcomes differed by extent of repair, with the risk being greatest in extent II repair. Actuarial survival was 63.6% at 5 years, 36.8% at 10 years, and 18.3% at 15 years. Freedom from repair failure was nearly 98% at 5 years, around 95% at 10 years, and 94% at 15 years.

“Along with respectable early outcomes, after repair, patients have acceptable long-term survival, and late repair failure was uncommon. Notably, there are several subgroups of patients that do exceedingly well. Paraplegia in young patients with connective tissue disorders, even in the most-extensive repair (extent II), is remarkably rare – these patients do extremely well across the board,” he concluded.

Dr. Cosselli reported that he is a principal investigator and consultant for Medtronic and W.L. Gore & Assoc., as well as being a principal investigator, consultant, and having various financial relationships with Vascutek.

mlesney@frontlinemedcom.com

Perioperative factors influenced open TAAA repair