Surgical treatment of thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysms by simple crossclamping. Risk factors and late results.

Between 1981 and 1987, 88 consecutive patients were operated on for a thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm by simple crossclamping and a graft inclusion technique (without shunts or heparin). This article presents an analysis of the operative outcome and long-term follow-up. Patient- and operation-related variables are age (mean 64.3 years, range 28 to 82 years), sex (82% men), rupture (20.5%), diabetes (2.3%), renal insufficiency (34.1%), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (27.3%), previous aortic operation (31.8%), arterial hypertension (66%), postdissection (18.2%) versus degenerative (80.7%) origin, preoperative shock (11.4%), ischemic cerebrovascular (12.5%) or ischemic heart (17%) disease, peripheral vascular disease (14.8%), renal (mean 48 minutes, range 0 to 83 minutes) and lower spinal cord (mean 21 minutes, range 0 to 68 minutes) ischemic time, number of reattached intercostals, blood loss, and extent of the aneurysm (Crawford classification: type I, 16 patients [18.2%]; type II, 21 patients [23.8%]; type III, 29 patients [33%]; and type IV, 22 patients [25%]. Intraoperative mortality is 1.1% (n = 1). Thirty-day mortality is 5.9% (n = 5). Hospital mortality is 11.4% (n = 10): 7% for elective cases and 28% for ruptured aneurysms (p = 0.014). The survival at 2 years is 78% +/- (4.4%) and at 5 years 54% +/- (5.3%). Postoperative spinal cord injury occurred in 12 patients (13.8%) (5 had paraplegia and 7 had paraparesis) and postoperative renal dysfunction necessitating dialysis in 12 patients (14.1%). Risk stratification for hospital death, late death, renal failure, and spinal cord dysfunction was performed by means of multivariate logistic regression and Cox proportional hazard regression as appropriate. The best fitting model to predict hospital death includes preoperative shock (p = 0.02), female sex (p = 0.06), preoperative elevated serum creatinine level (p = 0.06), and preoperative myocardial infarction (p = 0.08). Variables predictive for late death are postoperative dialysis (p = 0.002), age (p = 0.008), and rupture (p = 0.04). The risk factors of postoperative dialysis are age (p = 0.003) and preoperative serum creatinine level (p = 0.04). The risk of postoperative spinal cord dysfunction increases with longer lower spinal cord ischemic time (p = 0.02) and with the presence of preoperative shock (p = 0.06).