Does Interhospital Transfer Influence the Outcomes of Patients Receiving Surgery for Acute Type A Aortic Dissection? Type A Aortic Dissection: Is Transfer Hazardous or Beneficial?

Introduction. The progression of acute type A aortic dissection may cause immediate death, such that, in the event of its diagnosis, emergency surgery is indicated. Relatedly, an interhospital transfer may prolong the time from diagnosis to surgery. Tis study therefore investigated how interhospital transfers impact surgical outcomes for acute type A aortic dissection. Materials and Methods. After excluding those patients who received deferred surgery for acute type A aortic dissection, 112 patients who received emergency surgery for the condition at our hospital from January 2011 to January 2018 were enrolled. Tese patients were divided into two groups, one consisting of the patients who were sent directly to our emergency department (group 1) and the other consisting of the patients who were transferred from another hospital afer frst being diagnosed with type A aortic dissection (group 2). Te collected data included the patient demographics, clinical characteristics, operative fndings and methods, postoperative outcomes, latest follow-up time, and most recent status. Results. Tere were 59 patients in group 1 and 53 patients in group 2. Univariate analysis revealed that group 1 had signifcantly more patients with a previous stroke (p = 0.007). Moreover, the average length of time from receiving a computed tomography (CT) scan to entering the operating room (OR) was shorter for the group 1 patients (p < 0.001). However, except for the incidence of postoperative acute kidney injury (14.5% versus 33.3%, p = 0.024), there was no statistical diference between the groups in terms of the operative fndings and outcomes, such as hypotension before cardiopulmonary bypass, hemopericardium, other complications, and survival rate. Multivariate analysis showed that the independent predictors of hospital mortality included age > 61.5 years (p = 0.017), respiratory rate upon admission > 18.5 breaths/minute (p = 0.046), and total bypass time > 265.6 minutes (p = 0.015). For the patients who survived to discharge, log-rank analysis demonstrated similar cumulative survival rates for the two groups (p = 0.62). Further multivariate analysis showed that the risk of death after discharge was associated with the interval between the CT scan and o‎r entry (hazard ratio = 0.97 per minute; 95% confdence interval, 0.950–0.998; p = 0.037). Conclusion. In this study, it was found that interhospital transfer did not infuence the surgical outcomes of patients with acute type A aortic dissection. As such, it can be concluded that the transfer of the patients with type A aortic dissection to tertiary hospitals with experienced cardiac surgical teams may not increase the surgical risk.