Background: The hospital mortality rate in >80-year-old patients undergoing surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) is reportedly satisfactory, but how such patients' functional status both at discharge and during the postoperative hospitalization period might affect their quality of life and medical costs remains unclear.Methods and Results:The adverse events of 161 patients aged >80 years who underwent SAVR with or without coronary artery bypass grafting were retrospectively investigated. Adverse events were defined as hospital death, a long hospital stay (>60 days) attributable to major complications or requirement for rehabilitation, or a depressed status at discharge (modified Rankin scale score >4). A total of 18.6% of patients developed adverse events, and their hospital mortality rate was 4.3%. Logistic regression analysis revealed that a perfusion time >3 h (P=0.0331; odds ratio, 2.685) and EuroSCORE II >10% (P<0.0001; odds ratio, 8.232) were significant risk factors for adverse events. The average medical cost was approximately 1.5-fold higher in patients with adverse events (¥8,360,880 vs. ¥5,234,660, P=0.0016).
Conclusions: Clinical findings focusing on status at discharge and during postoperative hospitalization of SAVR in patients aged >80 years was relatively high compared with hospital mortality, especially in patients with a longer perfusion time and high EuroSCORE. Further studies are necessary to define the indications for SAVR in patients aged >80 years in the era of transcatheter AVR.
Keywords: Aortic valve replacement; Octogenarians; Transcatheter aortic valve replacement.