Background: Although significant advances have been made in the surgical treatment of diseases affecting the descending thoracic aorta, paraplegia remains a devastating complication. We propose the quick, simple clamping technique to prevent spinal cord ischemic injury.
Methods: From 1983 to 1998, 143 patients had descending thoracic aorta aneurysm repair. We divided the patients into the following three groups according to the surgical technique used: selective atriodistal bypass was used in group 1 (66 patients); simple clamping technique in group 2 (28 patients); and quick simple clamping technique in group 3 (49 patients). Mean aortic cross clamp time was 39+/-13 minutes in group 1, 37+/-11 minutes in group 2, and 17+/-6 minutes in group 3 (p<0.01 group 3 versus group 1 and group 2).
Results: The overall incidence of paraplegia was 4.8% (7 patients), 4.5% (3 patients) in group 1, 14.3% (4 patients) in group 2, and 0 in group 3 (p<0.05 group 3 versus group 2). The overall in-hospital mortality rate was 5.5%. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed a powerful effect of aortic cross-clamping time as risk factor for both paraplegia (p<0.008), with an odds ratio of 1.03 per minute, and in-hospital mortality (p<0.001), with an odds ratio of 2.5 per minute. The mean follow-up time was 65 months with a lower overall mortality rate in group 3 than in group 1 and group 2 (p<0.05).
Conclusion: In descending thoracic aortic aneurysm repair, spinal cord perfusion can be maintained adequately without reimplantation of segmental vessels or use of atriodistal bypass when the aortic cross-clamp time is short (<15 to 20 minutes).