Chronic hypertension in infrarenal abdominal aortic aneurysm repair surgery. Multivariate analysis

Background and objectives: Chronic hypertension has a higher incidence in the perioperative setting. It increases the risk of complications like acute hypertension, bleeding, myocardial ischemia, and stroke. Perioperative management of these patients during vascular surgery could be challenging because of the additional co-morbidities like diabetes mellitus, vasculopathy, and cardiac disease. For these reasons, we conducted a retrospective study to observe the complications and mortality associated with chronic hypertension during vascular surgery. Materials and methods: After ethical committee approval we retrospectively review medical records of patients undergone abdominal aortic aneurysm repair surgery. Age, sex, ASA physical status, chronic hypertension (controlled or uncontrolled), type of surgery (open or endovascular; scheduled or urgent), anesthesia type, postoperative complications (acute hypertension, bleeding, acute renal failure, heart failure, stroke, and cardiac arrest) and mortality were recorded. A multivariate analysis of chronic hypertension, postoperative complications, and mortality was conducted using SPSS Software. A p - value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Our study included 544 patients undergoing abdominal aortic aneurysm repair surgery. Ninety-four percent of patients were men, mean age of 72 years old, and 67% were ASA III and IV. Seventy-three percent of patients presented chronic hypertension with appropriate control defined as the lack of target organ damage and previous complications related to hypertension in 83% of these patients. Endovascular surgery was performed in 44% and open procedure in 56% of patients. Elective surgery was carried out in 83% and urgent surgery in 17% of patients. General anesthesia was performed in 73% (combined general anesthesia with epidural analgesia in 36%) and regional anesthesia in 27% of cases. Controlled chronic hypertension was not associated with postoperative complications (CI 95% 0,581-2,982 p 0,510) and mortality (1-year mortality CI 95% 0,786-5,240 p 0,144; 2-year mortality CI 95% 0,655-3,845 p 0,306). Discussion: Chronic hypertension is largely considered a risk factor for perioperative complications of AAA repair. Conversely, our results suggest that adequate control of chronic hypertension before AAA repair leads to a low incidence of postoperative complications as well as 1 and 2-year mortality rates.