One Year of Experience Performing 28 Frozen Elephant Trunk Operations
Year: 2026
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Aim. To analyze the early single-center outcomes of 28 Frozen Elephant Trunk (FET) procedures performed within one calendar year, including intraoperative parameters, early postoperative complications, and in-hospital mortality.Clinical Case. Analysis of the spectrum of aortic pathology in patients who underwent the FET procedure (n=28) demonstrated a heterogeneous distribution of aortic diseases, with a predominance of Stanford type A aortic dissections. Nine patients (32.1 %) had a history of previous cardiac surgery.The total operative time was significantly longer in patients who received the E-vita hybrid prosthesis compared with those who received the Cronus prosthesis (660.0 [630.0-690.0] min vs. 540.0 [475.0-570.0] min, respectively; p=0.027). A similar trend was observed for cardiopulmonary bypass duration, which was significantly longer in the E-vita group (316.5 [303.25-342.75] min) than in the Cronus group (242.0 [232.0-286.0] min; p=0.023). Likewise, antegrade cerebral perfusion time was longer in the E-vita group (131.0 [120.5-136.25] min) than in the Cronus group (103.5 [94.25-115.5] min); however, this difference did not reach statistical significance (p=0.053).Hospital mortality was 7.1 % (2 patients).Results. The results of our one-year experience with the Frozen Elephant Trunk (FET) technique demonstrate its effectiveness as a single-stage surgical approach for the treatment of complex thoracic aortic disease, consistent with contemporary published evidence. In our cohort, hospital mortality was 7.1 %, which is comparable to or even lower than that reported in large multicenter studies, where mortality ranges from 8 % to 22 %, depending on patient characteristics and the urgency of surgery.The incidence of spinal cord ischemia in our cohort was 14.3 %, slightly exceeding the rates reported in the literature (5-12 %). A major advantage of the FET technique, confirmed both in our study and in previous reports, is its ability to achieve favorable aortic remodeling while reducing the need for secondary interventions.Conclusions. The Frozen Elephant Trunk technique enabled successful single-stage surgical treatment of patients with complex thoracic aortic pathology, yielding satisfactory early outcomes, including a spinal cord ischemia rate of 14.3 % (n=4) and a hospital mortality rate of 7.1 %.
Language: English
Subfield: Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7214944677