Long-term Outcomes and Quality of Life Following Acute Type A Aortic Dissection

Abstract Introduction Acute aortic dissection (AAD) represents surgical emergency and current literature mainly consists of postoperative outcome reports. Long term outcome and quality of life have not extensively been investigated. Purpose This is a single center study to assess long term outcome and quality of life of patients who underwent emergency surgery for AAD. Methods From January 2007 until December 2009, 74 consecutive patients were operated for AAD type A in our hospital. Seventeen died during hospital stay and 12 died during follow-up. Mean follow up was 108±10 months. Seventeen patients refused to answer the SF-36 questionnaire; therefore our study group consists of 28 patients. The SF-36 Questionnaire was retrospectively obtained by phone calls, the first, fifth and tenth postoperative year and 2 summary scores are reported, physical (PCS) and mental (MCS). Results Our in-hospital mortality was 23%, late mortality 21.1% and the overall mortality was 39.2%. Significant differences in both physical and mental score over time were found among the 28 long-term survivors (Table). Both PCS and MCS at 1st, 5th and 10th year did not differ compared to age-matched general population but compared to subjects with one or more chronic diseases both PCS and MCS were both significantly better at 5yrs in our patients vs controls (p=0.0028 and p=0.0259, respectively). Likewise, at 5 years PCS but not MCS was better in comparison to subjects with a history of one hospitalization the preceding year (p=0.035 and p=0.1, respectively). Descriptive statistics of physical and mental component summary score over time Score 1 year (FU1) 5 years (FU2) 10 years (FU3) p-value Mean (SD) Mean (SD) Mean (SD) PCS 45.4 (7.7) 50.3 (7.0) 46.8 (9.2) 0.008* MCS 42.8 (15.1) 49.7 (12.7) 49.1 (12.3) 0.001** PCS, Physical component summary; *1 vs 5: p=0.003, 1 vs 10: p=0.469, 5 vs 10: p=0.027. MCS, Mental component summary; **1 vs 5: p=0.001, 1 vs 10: p=0.001, 5 vs 10: p=0.939. SD, standard deviation. Conclusion Quality of life improves after the 1st post-operative year and is comparable to healthy subjects. Although acute dissection is a catastrophic event with high mortality despite successful and timely repair, long term survival and quality of life on the long term are favorable.