Early and late survival of repaired type A aortic dissection

From 1 January 1977 to 31 December 1988, 119 patients were operated upon for type A aortic dissection. The maximum follow-up was 11.7 years (median 5.6 years); follow-up was 100% complete. Actuarial survival was 47.3% +/- 5%. The death risk decreased rapidly to a constant rate of 0.0027 events/month after 3 months. There were 41 early deaths, mostly due to haemorrhage, brain damage and low output syndrome. A significantly higher probability of early death was observed in patients with preoperative myocardial ischaemia or infarction (P less than 0.0001) or preoperative cerebral symptoms (P = 0.0002). Extended dissection increased the risk proportionally to the length of the aorta involved (P = 0.0002). Typical dissection originating from an intimal tear in the ascending aorta had a significantly lower operative risk than atypical dissection with an intimal tear not localized in the aortic root (P = 0.0006). Of the 14 late deaths, 2 were unrelated to dissection, 2 were of unknown origin and 4 were sudden. Stroke was the cause of 2 and congestive heart failure the cause of 4 deaths. The probability of late death was higher in patients with perioperative brain damage (P = 0.003) and in patients with preoperative shock (P = 0.0025). It was significantly lower in patients with dissection of hypertensive aetiology (P = 0.002). There were 13 reoperations on 12 patients. Early reoperations were due to rupture of the distal aortic anastomosis. Late reoperations were mostly due to dehiscence of aortic valvular prosthesis.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)