SURGICAL-MANAGEMENT OF AORTIC DISSECTION IN PATIENTS WITH THE MARFAN-SYNDROME

Background Aortic dissection is one of the most lethal potential compl ications in patients with the Marfan syndrome. Methods and Results Amo ng 360 patients undergoing operative treatment of aortic dissection be tween 1963 and 1992, 40 had the Marfan syndrome. There were 24 men and 16 women with a mean age of 35+/-9 years (+/-1 SD; range, 15 to 54 ye ars). These patients included 16 with acute type A, 2 with acute type B, 18 with chronic type A, and 4 with chronic type B aortic dissection s. The aortic arch was involved in 29 cases. Preoperative complication s included acute aortic valvular insufficiency in 13 patients, rupture into the pericardial space in 3, and loss of peripheral pulses in 9. The site of primary intimal tear was the ascending aorta in 25 patient s, the aortic arch in 2, the descending aorta in 7, and not identified in 6. Operations included ascending aortic and aortic valvular replac ement (with or without coronary artery reimplantation) in 22 patients, ascending aortic replacement alone in 5, and descending thoracic aort ic replacement in 9. Four operative deaths (10+/-5% [+/-70% confidence limits]) occurred in 3 acute patient-years and 1 chronic type A patie nt-years. Long-term follow-up (216 patient-years; range, 1 month to 22 years; mean, 5.4 years) revealed 15 late deaths, 7 from late aortic s equelae. The overall actuarial survival estimates were 71+/-8%, 54+/-1 0%, and 22+/-11% at 5, 10, and 15 years, respectively. Twenty late aor tic operations were required in 14 patients. Conclusions Despite satis factory early results, the longterm survival of patients with the Marf an syndrome was suboptimal (albeit similar to those without the Marfan syndrome). Future progress will pivot on reducing the incidence of ao rtic dissection in these patients with medical therapy and/or earlier surgical intervention and enhanced postoperative serial imaging survei llance of the entire aorta.