Aortic hemiarch reconstruction safely matches complex aortic arch reconstruction for acute dissection in older adults
2026-02-01
(Press-News.org)
Aortic Hemiarch Reconstruction Safely Matches Complex Aortic Arch Reconstruction for Acute Dissection in Older Adults
NEW ORLEANS—February 1, 2026—Ascending aortic hemiarch reconstruction offers the same long-term benefits to patients over age 65 with acute type A aortic dissection (ATAAD) as more complex extended arch reconstruction procedures, according to a study presented today at the 2026 Society of Thoracic Surgeons Annual Meeting.
The finding came from a risk-adjusted analysis of 3,562 patients examining long-term survival and surgical reintervention for aortic disease following initial operation for ATAAD. Patient data came from the STS Adult Cardiac Surgery Database (ACSD), containing nearly 8.5 million adult cardiac surgery procedure records and linked to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services database. Of the ATAAD patients studied, 74.2% underwent aortic hemiarch replacement and 25.8% underwent extended arch reconstruction at a US hospital between July 2017 and December 2023.
Aortic dissection occurs when a tear in the inner lining of the aorta, the largest blood vessel in the body, allows blood to flow inside the aortic wall and “dissect” the layers apart, which dramatically increases the risk of aortic rupture and interruption of blood flow to the affected portions of the body. Acute dissections affecting the ascending aorta usually require emergency surgery, often in patients aged 65 or older. Cardiovascular surgeons have many options when planning surgery for these patients, said John R. Spratt, MD, clinical assistant professor of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery at University of Florida Health, a center with one of the highest aortic surgery volumes in the nation.
Ascending hemiarch replacement involves replacement of the ascending aorta and the underside of the first portion of the aortic arch and is considered to have lower operative risk and complexity compared with extended arch reconstruction. Extended arch reconstruction describes any procedure involving replacement of the ascending aorta, partial or total replacement of the transverse arch, and re-implantation of one or more arch vessels. Depending on the technique used, most extended arch reconstructions carry greater short-term operative risk due to the need for longer periods of cardiopulmonary bypass, cardiac arrest, and more advanced forms of cerebral protection that are needed during the procedure compared with ascending hemiarch reconstruction.
“Patients with aortic dissection can require additional aortic operations later in life, even if the initial dissection repair was successful,” said Spratt. “Extended arch reconstruction may decrease the long-term risk of requiring additional open aortic surgery. However, older patients have a shorter overall life expectancy and the extent to which they can reap these benefits is unclear.”
In the six years of data reviewed in the study, extended arch reconstruction for acute dissection in patients over the age of 65 did not confer any long-term advantage regarding survival or rates of undergoing additional aortic surgery compared to the hemiarch procedure.
“It is important to balance what the ‘ideal’ reconstruction may be when reviewing a CT scan with the overall risk profile of an individual patient. Based on our analysis, most patients age 65 and older undergoing repair of acute dissection will be fine with hemiarch reconstruction and have the same long-term outcomes as they would with a higher-risk procedure,” said Spratt.
The ACSD is part of the STS National Database, one of the largest and most comprehensive clinical registries with nearly 10 million cardiothoracic procedures performed by 4,300+ surgeons. With more than 95% of adult cardiac surgery procedures and the largest and most robust clinical thoracic surgical database in the US, data and outcomes from the STS Database provide true national benchmarks for clinical outcomes of cardiothoracic surgery.
About The Society of Thoracic Surgeons
The Society of Thoracic Surgeons is a not-for-profit organization representing more than 8,000 surgeons, researchers, and allied healthcare professionals worldwide who are committed to improving outcomes for patients undergoing cardiothoracic surgery.
#####
END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2026-02-01
An agreement on the third implementation phase of Destination Earth (DestinE), the European Commission’s initiative to develop a highly accurate digital twin of the Earth, has been signed between the European Commission and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). The third phase will start in June 2026 and end in June 2028.
The DestinE digital twins enable the exploration of past, present and likely future climate and extreme conditions, ...
2026-01-31
Late-Breaking Study Finds Comparable Long-Term Survival Between Two Leading Multi-Arterial CABG Strategies
Largest US analysis leveraging the STS National Database shows patient age may guide optimal conduit selection
NEW ORLEANS — January 31, 2026 — A late-breaking study drawing on more than 15 years of national outcomes data from the STS Adult Cardiac Surgery Database (ACSD) suggests that the two most commonly used multi-arterial coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) strategies—bilateral internal thoracic artery (BITA) and single internal thoracic artery plus radial artery (SITA+RA)—offer comparable ...
2026-01-31
Lymph node examination should be expanded to accurately assess
cancer spread in patients with lung cancer
NEW ORLEANS — January 31, 2026 — Breakthrough research presented at the 2026 Society of Thoracic Surgeons Annual Meeting shows that additional lymph node evaluation is needed during surgery for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) to accurately identify cancer spread.
Globally, surgical standards vary on the number and location of lymph nodes that should be removed and assessed for metastasis in patients with clinically node-negative NSCLC, cancer that imaging shows has not spread. In North America, surgical standards developed in 2021 call for assessment of three N2 nodes ...
2026-01-31
Study Examines Prediction of Surgical Risk
in Growing Population of Adults with Congenital Heart Disease
NEW ORLEANS — January 31, 2026 — Heart specialists at Mayo Clinic today presented new research at the 2026 Society of Thoracic Surgeons Annual Meeting that redo surgery for adults with congenital heart disease (CHD) remains high-risk, and a clinically applicable national risk assessment model is needed to help patients and care teams make decisions about procedures.
Adults with CHD represent a growing and medically complex population, despite surgical advances. ...
2026-01-31
Bridging Speed and Accuracy in Radiation Therapy QA
Led by Professor Fu Jin, the study addresses a critical challenge in radiation therapy: balancing the computational speed and accuracy of EPID-based dose verification. EPID has emerged as a key tool for real-time in vivo dose verification. However, MC simulation—long regarded as the "gold standard" for dose calculation—faces a dilemma: increasing the number of simulated particles ensures higher accuracy but at the cost of significantly longer computation times, whereas reducing the particle count introduces disruptive noise that compromises result reliability.
Integrated MC-DL Technology
To address this challenge, the ...
2026-01-31
Exploring Lepton Flavor Violation
Led by researchers from Sun Yat-sen University, the Institute of Modern Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and multiple collaborating institutions across China, MACE is designed to search for the spontaneous conversion of muonium—a bound state of a positive muon and an electron—into its antimatter counterpart, antimuonium. Such a transition would violate lepton flavor conservation, a symmetry upheld by the Standard Model of particle physics, ...
2026-01-30
Professor Jian Wang's research group at Tsinghua University reported a photocatalyzed/nitrogen heterocyclic carbene-catalyzed asymmetric radical α-alkoxycarbonylation reaction of amines. Using dibenzylaniline derivatives and readily available pyrocarbonates as starting materials, chiral α-amino acid esters can be synthesized in one step. Further deprotection reactions yield chiral α-amino acids containing primary, secondary, or tertiary amine groups. This research provides a novel method for obtaining structurally diverse chiral α-amino acid derivatives and has ...
2026-01-30
MADISON — The cells in our bodies move in groups during biological processes such as wound healing and tissue development — but because of resistance, or viscosity, those cells can't just neatly glide past each other.
Or can they?
Using a pioneering method they developed to directly measure viscosity in a group of cells, University of Wisconsin–Madison engineers have made a surprising discovery that upends understanding of how cells move.
It's called "negative viscosity," and it propels cells, rather than impedes ...
2026-01-30
The Institute for Data Science in Oncology (IDSO) at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center today announced the appointment of Iakovos Toumazis, Ph.D., to lead its focused efforts in advancing decision analytics for health.
The goal of this new IDSO focus area is to develop, rigorously validate and implement advanced data‑driven analytics frameworks that support optimal decision‑making to enhance patient outcomes, to strengthen value‑based care delivery, and to enable efficient allocation of health ...
2026-01-30
Cities occupy just a small fraction of Earth's land, but they act as the planet's massive carbon engines, pumping out the lion's share of global CO2 emissions. To stop climate change, we first have to measure it accurately—street by street and chimney by chimney. A comprehensive new review published in Carbon Research takes a deep dive into the sophisticated networks designed to "sniff out" these emissions, highlighting both the technological triumphs and the massive gaps still remaining in our global monitoring net.
Leading the charge is Professor Gan Zhang from the State Key Laboratory of Advanced Environmental Technology at the Guangzhou Institute ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Aortic hemiarch reconstruction safely matches complex aortic arch reconstruction for acute dissection in older adults
