Aortic valve replacement with and without coronary artery bypass graft surgery in octogenarians: is it safe and feasible?

INTRODUCTION: Octogenarians are often denied complex surgical intervention. We evaluated the rationality of this bias by comparing the outcomes of octogenarians undergoing aortic valve replacement (AVR) with or without coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), to those of younger patients.

METHODS: Data on 476 patients (≥ 80 years) who underwent AVR or AVR/CABG were compared to the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) database.

RESULTS: One hundred and seventeen octogenarians underwent AVR and 263 underwent AVR/CABG. Preoperative comorbidity rates were similar between these 2 respective groups, except for diabetes mellitus (18.8 vs. 30.4%, p = 0.02), previous cardiac stent placement (5.1 vs. 17.9%, p = 0.0006) and prior CABG (8.5 vs. 0.8%, p = 0.0002) and mortality did not differ significantly (5.1 vs. 7.6%, p = 0.51). Multivariate analysis identified preoperative chronic renal failure [odds ratio (OR) = 0.09, p < 0.048], postoperative arrhythmia (OR = 0.29, p < 0.022), sepsis (OR =37.38, p < 0.000), pneumonia (OR = 8.29, p < 0.038) and renal failure (OR = 10.16, p < 0.000) with increased rates of in hospital mortality in AVR alone and AVR/CABG.

CONCLUSION: AVR alone or AVR/CABG can be safely performed in patients ≥ 80 years with acceptable morbidity/mortality rates. An age of ≥ 80 years is not an independent risk factor predictive of increased in hospital mortality