A systemic review and meta-analysis: Bentall versus David procedure in acute type A aortic dissection

This systemic review of the literature and meta-analysis examined the current state of the evidence in long-term outcomes for and/or against aortic valve reimplantation (RAV) versus composite valve graft (CVG) intervention in patients with an acute type A dissection. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the baseline characteristics of patients across studies. A random-effects metaregression was performed across study arms with logit-transformed proportions weighted by the study size for each of these outcomes. The results are presented as odds ratios with the RAV procedure as compared to the CVG procedure, including 95% confidence intervals (CIs) and P-values. Further outcomes are summarized with medians, interquartile ranges and the range and number of patients at risk. A total of 27 retrospective studies that included a combined 3058 patients were analysed. In-hospital mortality was in favour of the RAV procedure, which was 2% vs 8% for the CVG procedure. Survival rate at midterm was 98.8% (95% CI 91.7-100%) for RAV and 81.3% (CI 78.5-83.9%) for CVG. Freedom from valve-related reintervention was 100% (CI 93.7-100%) for RAV and 94.6% (CI 86.7-99.1%) for CVG. For an acute type A aortic dissection in the mid-term period, RAV provides a superior outcome over CVG, both in terms of aortic-valve-related reintervention and survival rate.