The Long-term Results and Causes of Death after Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Repair

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to analyze the causes of late death and the long-term survival of patients following abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) repair. METHODS: From 1993 to 2005, 146 (98 intact and 48 ruptured) consecutive AAA patients underwent open repair. The perioperative data was supplemented with a retrospective review of the medical records and the use of the database of the National Statistical Office to calculate the survival rates and the causes of death. RESULTS: There was one operative death (1%) in the intact AAA group and 12 (25%) in the ruptured AAA group. After exclusion of the operative deaths, the survival rates of the intact AAA patients were 94.5% at 1 year, 77.0% at 5 years and 33.2% at 10 years; these findings demonstrated a significant longer survival for the intact AAA patients than for patients with ruptured AAA (86.1% at 1 year, 56.7% at 5 years and 0% at 10 years, respectively). The causes of late death included cardiovascular disease in 52.8% (coronary artery disease in 22.6%, cerebrovascular disease in 20.8%, other arterial aneurysms in 5.7% and graft-related death in 3.8%), malignancies in 11.3% and pulmonary disease in 11.3%. The multivariate analysis showed that the long-term survival rates were influenced by the rupture status, the history of cerebrovascular disease and hypertension. CONCLUSION: This study showed that the long-term survival after intact AAA repair was better than that for ruptured AAA repair even if we exclude the operative deaths. The most common cause of late death was cardiovascular disease. Our findings suggest that the patients with preoperative cerebrovascular disease and hypertension require additional care.