A 5-year evaluation of the GORE-TEX® Vascular Graft performance in patients undergoing treatment for abdominal aortic aneurysms.

Background: Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) open surgical repair (OSR) is still considered as a valuable option. There are no strong arguments to choose one vascular graft material and design rather than another one to perform the revascularization. The goal of the study was to evaluate the 5-year performance of the expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) GORE-TEX^® vascular graft for AAA OSR.

Methods: We performed a retrospective, multicenter, single-arm study of patients treated with ePTFE GORE-TEX^® vascular grafts for aorto-iliac aneurysms. Patients were enrolled from three different medical centers in France. Protocol enrollment was from 2022-2023, with procedure data collected between September 2013 and January 2017. Primary endpoints included survival and primary patency at 5-years and secondary outcomes included secondary patency, infection and reinterventions rates.

Results: Sixty-five patients were included. Fifty-seven percent of the patients were males and mean age was 66±7.1 years. Mean AAA diameter was 54±14 mm. Thirty-day mortality was 1.5%. Lost of follow-up rate was 1.5%. One and five-year survival rates were respectively 93.8% and 81.3%. One and five-year primary patency rates were respectively 98.5% and 96.7%. Five-year reintervention rate was 12.3%. No infection was reported.

Conclusions: Our study, conducted on patients with at least a 5-year follow-up, demonstrated good results in terms of safety and durability of the use of an ePTFE graft for AAA OSR. This contemporary study contributes in the reappraisal of OSR for the management of AAA.