Impact of hypertension on short- and long-term survival of patients who underwent emergency surgery for type A acute aortic dissection

BACKGROUND: To explore the clinical characteristics and prognosis of patients with hypertension underwent emergency surgery for type A acute aortic dissection (TA-AAD). METHODS: The present study enrolled 712 consecutive patients diagnosed with TA-AAD and received aortic repair surgery at our hospital between January 2014 to December 2018. Clinical characteristics of enrolled patients were retrospectively reviewed. Patients were grouped by preexisting hypertension history and matched with propensity scores matching method. Patients’ clinical characteristics were compared and analyzed before and after propensity scoring. To identify predictors for long-term mortality rate, Kaplan-Meier survival estimation and Cox proportional hazard analysis were performed. RESULTS: A total of 492 patients (69.1% of all patients in the cohort) were included in the hypertensive group and they had increased age and weight compared to patients in the non-hypertensive group. Between two groups, preoperative leukocyte count and serum creatinine level were found significant different (P<0.05). After propensity scoring, 128 pairs (256 patients) were successfully matched. Our analysis showed that there was no significant difference of ventilation duration, 30-day mortality rate, intensive care unit stay and hospitalization time between two groups. However, our data suggested that hypertensive patients presented with less intra-operative aortic valve involvement. There was a significant difference in long-term survival rate (P=0.037) between two groups. Cox regression analysis demonstrated that hypertension was an independent risk factor [hazard ratio (HR), 3.040; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.124–8.227; P=0.029]. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggested that TA-AAD patients complicated with hypertension had increased age and weight compared to non-hypertensive patients. Concomitant hypertension identified upon hospital administration was an independent risk factor for long-term survival in TA-AAD patients while did not influence the 30-day mortality rate.