title: Aortic valve prosthesis and late survival of successfully repaired type A dissection.
abstract: Seventy-two operative survivors of acute type A dissection between 1973 and 1993 had a complete follow up with a 16 years actuarial survival of 57% and a reoperation free actuarial survival of 34%. Follow up was 100% complete and covered a total of 500.6 patients-years with a median of seven years. Distal tear location (proximal, medium or distal aortic arch) with retrograde dissection toward the aortic valve was the single most important predictor of late mortality with a relative risk of 4.4 (70%CL 2.4-8.2) (p = 0.016). Mortality rate of patients with an aortic valve prosthesis was 6.2%/patient-year vs. 1.7/patient-year without aortic valve prosthesis, with a relative risk of 3.4 (70%CL 2.0-5.8) (p = 0.02). This finding could be due to confounding of variables related both to death and need of aortic valve replacement. Therefore a multivariate proportional hazard analysis, with mandatory inclusion of possible confounders, was done. It showed that patients with aortic valvular prosthesis had eight times higher risk (70% CL 2.7-24.2); prosthetic aortic valves and conservative aortic root procedures had an unconfounded relative risk of 14 times higher (70%CL 3.4-58.7) (P = 0.06), whereas patients with a composite conduit had a six times higher risk (70%CL 2.0-19.9) (p = 0.11). These findings support the attitude favoring a selective approach to aortic root repair and oppose standardized use of aortic valve prosthesis or composite conduit in acute type A dissection.
authors.affiliation: University of Padova, Italy.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rizzoli
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Tiso
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Scalia
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fracasso
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Casarotto
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000784:Aortic Dissection / Q000401:mortality / Q000601:surgery*; D001014:Aortic Aneurysm / Q000401:mortality / Q000601:surgery*; D001021:Aortic Valve; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006350:Heart Valve Prosthesis; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012086:Reoperation; D015996:Survival Rate; D016896:Treatment Outcome