Association between cardiopulmonary bypass time and 90-day post-operative mortality in patients undergoing arch replacement with the frozen elephant trunk: a retrospective cohort study

Background The aortic arch replacement and cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) are both associated with the early mortality after cardiothoracic surgery. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between CPB time and 90-day post-operative mortality in patients undergoing aortic arch surgery using the frozen elephant trunk (FET) technique with selective ante-grade cerebral perfusion (SACP). Methods We retrospectively reviewed data of 377 adult patients undergoing aortic arch surgery via FET with SACP from July 1, 2017 to December 31, 2018 at Beijing Anzhen Hospital. The baseline characteristics, intra-operative data, and post-operative data were collected. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were used to determine independent predictors of 90-day post-operative mortality. Results The 90-day post-operative mortality was 13.53%. The 78.51% of patients were men. There were 318 (84.35%) type A aortic dissections and 28 (7.43%) aortic aneurysms. Among those, 264 (70.03%) were emergency operations. Median CPB time was 202.0 (176.0, 227.0) min. Multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that CPB time was independently associated with 90-day post-operative mortality after adjusting confounding factors (hazard ratio: 1.21/10 min increase in CPB time, 95% confidence interval: 1.15-1.27, P < 0.001). Kaplan-Meier analysis based on CPB time tertiles revealed that the top tertile (median 236.0 min) was associated with reduced survival rate compared with middle and bottom tertiles (P < 0.001). Each sub-group analysis based on the complexity of the underlying disease process showed similar associations between CPB time and 90-day post-operative mortality. Conclusions CPB time remains a significant factor in determining 90-day post-operative mortality in patients undergoing aortic arch surgery using FET with SACP. Surgeons should be aware of the relationship between CPB time and 90-day post-operative mortality during operative procedures and avoid extended CPB time as far as possible.