Objectives: The increasing age in the population and improvements in the treatment options for aortic valvular disease have resulted in a considerable rise in the number of elderly patients being admitted for conventional aortic valve surgery. Recently, transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) has been developed as a less invasive treatment option. However, both open heart surgery and transcatheter treatment have serious complications. Thus, the knowledge of contemporary results of conventional surgery is important in guiding treatment allocation.
Methods: From the database at Feiring Heart Clinic, 1525 patients were identified who had undergone aortic valve replacement from 1999 to 2010; of these, 361 patients were more than 80 years of age. The population was followed for all-cause mortality until March 2011, with special reference to the age group older than 80 years and other high-risk subsets.
Results: The short-term mortality was 2.2% in the whole population and 3.9% in octogenarians. Five-year survival was 83.1 and 68.1%, respectively. In the high-risk subgroup of patients with a logistic EuroSCORE above 20%, the equivalent figures were 4.2 and 72.7%.
Conclusions: Contemporary results after conventional aortic valve surgery are excellent in both short- and long-term survival and should not be withheld in the elderly or otherwise high-risk populations. The logistic EuroSCORE grossly overestimates the operative risk and should be used with caution in allocating patients to TAVI instead of conventional surgery.