Cardiac surgery in nonagenarians: pushing the boundary one further decade

With increasing age of the general population, the necessity for cardiac surgery in the collective of patients aged 90 and older has been increasing. To aid in the choice of adequate therapy we investigated our experience for the group of nonagenarians undergoing surgical interventions. From 6/2000 to 9/2007, 17 patients aged 90 and older underwent open-heart surgery at our institution. We performed a retrospective data analysis including baseline preoperative clinical status, intra- and postoperative results and the long-term survival in the further postoperative course. We performed cardiac surgical procedures in 17 patients (male/female ratio 6/11), including isolated aortic valve replacement (n = 7), aortic root replacement (n = 2), isolated coronary bypass surgery (n = 4), combined coronary and valve surgery (n = 5), re-operative valve replacement (n = 1) and root replacement with arch repair (n = 1). Emergency procedures were performed in 11.8% (2/17). Mean age was 91.9 ± 1.2 years, ranging 90.1-94.2. Mean follow-up was 3.2 ± 2.2 years. The 30-day mortality was 17.6% (3/17), overall mortality at 42.9 follow-up patient years was 58.8% (10/17). We conclude that cardiac surgery procedures can be performed with therapeutic benefit for selected nonagenarians safely and with acceptable operative risk. After analysis our clinical experience we believe age alone not to be a contraindication for surgical intervention, consideration of the physiologic status of the patient reflects on the postoperative outcome. Survival of the patients investigated that survived the initial 30-day postoperative period was similar to the estimated survival of the equally aged general population in Germany.