Objective: To analyse the early and mid-term outcome of patients undergoing conventional aortic valve replacement (AVR) versus minimally invasive via hemi-sternotomy aortic valve replacement (MIAVR).
Methods: A single centre retrospective study involving 653 patients who underwent isolated aortic valve replacement (AVR) either via conventional AVR (n = 516) or MIAVR (n = 137) between August 2015 and March 2020. Using pre-operative characteristics, patients were propensity matched (PM) to produce 114 matched pairs. Assessment of peri-operative outcomes, early and mid-term survival and echocardiographic parameters was performed.
Results: The mean age of the PM conventional AVR group was 71.5 (±8.9) years and the number of male (n = 57) and female (n = 57) patients were equal. PM MIAVR group mean age was 71.1 (±9.5) years, and 47% of patients were female (n = 54) and 53% male (n = 60). Median follow-up for PM conventional AVR and MIAVR patients was 3.4 years (minimum 0, maximum 4.8 years) and 3.4 years (minimum 0, maximum 4.8 years), respectively. Larger sized aortic valve prostheses were inserted in the MIAVR group (median 23, IQR = 4) versus conventional AVR group (median 21, IQR = 2; p = 0.02, SMD = 0.34). Cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) time was longer with MIAVR (94.4 ± 19.5 minutes) compared to conventional AVR (83.1 ± 33.3; p = 0.0001, SMD = 0.41). Aortic cross-clamp (AoX) time was also longer in MIAVR (71.6 ± 16.5 minutes) compared to conventional AVR (65.0 ± 52.8; p = 0.0001, SMD = 0.17). There were no differences in the early post-operative complications and mortality between the two groups. Follow-up echocardiographic data showed significant difference in mean aortic valve gradients between conventional AVR and MIAVR groups (17.3 ± 8.2 mmHg vs 13.0 ± 5.1 mmHg, respectively; p = 0.01, SMD = -0.65). There was no significant difference between conventional AVR and MIAVR in mid-term survival at 3 years (88.6% vs 92.1%; log-rank test p = 0.31).
Conclusion: Despite the longer CPB and AoX times in the MIAVR group, there was no significant difference in early complications, mortality and mid-term survival between MIAVR and conventional AVR.
Keywords: MIAVR; aortic valve replacement; conventional aortic valve replacement; median sternotomy; mini-sternotomy; minimally invasive aortic valve replacement.