Endovascular Repair for Descending Thoracic Aortic Disease?

Endovascular aortic repair with stent grafts is a less invasive alternative to open surgical repair for patients with descending thoracic aneurysms. In this systematic review, investigators compared the two treatment modalities in a meta-analysis of 42 nonrandomized studies that involved almost 6000 patients.

Compared with open repair, endovascular repair was associated with lower 30-day mortality (odds ratio, 0.4), paraplegia (OR, 0.4), cardiac complications (OR, 0.4), and overall complications (OR, 0.2). Mortality at 1 year was not significantly different between procedures, and longer-term data were sparse. Adjustment for potential confounders, such as patient age at baseline and year of enrollment, did not substantially change the result…