on behalf of the GERAADA Investigators Background-Cerebral protection during surgery for acute aortic dissection type A relies on hypothermic circulatory arrest, either alone or in conjunction with cerebral perfusion. Methods and Results-The perioperative and intraoperative conditions of 1558 patients submitted from 44 cardiac surgery centers in German-speaking countries were analyzed. Among patients with acute aortic dissection type A, 355 (22.8%) underwent surgery with hypothermic circulatory arrest alone. In 1115 patients (71.6%), cerebral perfusion was used: Unilateral antegrade cerebral perfusion (ACP) in 628 (40.3%), bilateral ACP in 453 (29.1%), and retrograde perfusion in 34 patients (2.2%). For 88 patients with acute aortic dissection type A (5.6%), no circulatory arrest and arch intervention were reported (cardiopulmonary bypass-only group). End points of the study were 30-day mortality (15.9% overall) and mortality-corrected permanent neurological dysfunction (10.5% overall). The respective values for the cardiopulmonary bypass-only group were 11.4% and 9.1%. Hypothermic circulatory arrest alone resulted in a 30-day mortality rate of 19.4% and a mortality-corrected permanent neurological dysfunction rate of 11.5%, whereas the rates were 13.9% and 10.0%, respectively, for unilateral ACP and 15.9% and 11.0%, respectively, for bilateral ACP. In contrast with the ACP groups, there was a profound increase in mortality when systemic circulatory arrest times exceeded 30 minutes in the hypothermic circulatory arrest group (PϽ0.001). Mortality-corrected permanent neurological dysfunction correlated significantly with perfusion pressure in the ACP groups.
Conclusions-This