Late survival in abdominal aortic aneurysm patients: the role of selective myocardial revascularization on the basis of clinical symptoms.

Coronary artery disease is recognized as the major cause of perioperative and late death after abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) repair. Routine coronary angiography and prophylactic myocardial revascularization for all significant lesions, regardless of symptoms, have been recommended as a means of reducing this mortality risk. We have advocated a more selective approach in which coronary angiography and myocardial revascularization are performed on the basis of cardiac symptoms. Studies have shown that this selective approach is just as effective as the prophylactic approach in reducing perioperative deaths. To evaluate the effect on late survival of selective myocardial revascularization on the basis of symptoms, we reviewed the preoperative coronary status and course of 485 patients who successfully underwent AAA repair between 1980 and 1985. Late survival was evaluated by means of the Kaplan-Meier method and compared with life expectancy of an age- and sex-matched population. Late survival of the entire group of patients was no different from that of the matched population. Patients with no preoperative evidence of coronary artery disease did significantly better than expected (p = 0.05), whereas those patients with uncorrected or previously bypassed coronary disease had survival no different from that expected. When age was considered as a variable, patients in their 50s and 60s had survival significantly worse than the matched population (p less than 0.001 and p = 0.003, respectively). Patients in their 70s and 80s had survival as good as or better than the matched population, regardless of coronary status.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)