An Alternative Approach Using Long Elephant Trunk for Extensive Aortic Aneurysm: Elephant Trunk Anastomosis at the Base of the Innominate Artery

BackgroundAlthough a staged elephant trunk procedure has been widely used, the early mortality of the first stage operation as well as the interval mortality between operations remains unsatisfactory. We developed an alternative elephant trunk procedure to reduce mortality and morbidity. Methods and Results Ascending aorta and arch vessels were minimally dissected. During systemic cooling, a four-branched arch graft with a sewing “collar” and a long “elephant trunk” was prepared. The ascending aorta was opened under selective brain perfusion with moderate hypothermia (25°C), and the elephant trunk was then pulled down into the descending aorta using the catching catheter introduced via a femoral artery. The elephant trunk anastomosis using the collar was made at the base of the innominate artery. The arch vessels were divided and closed at aortic stump, and grafted separately as a consequence of the very proximal site for the elephant trunk anastomosis. Between October 1998 and September 2001, 17 patients, ranging in age from 25 to 79 years (mean 67 years) with extensive aortic aneurysm underwent this operation. Preoperative cardiac complications included coronary artery disease in 5, aortic regurgitation in 3, and 3 of these 8 patients had poor left ventricular function with an ejection fraction less than 40%. Nine patients underwent a second stage operation, in 1 of them the permanent elephant trunk procedure was initially attempted but the second stage procedure was done because of increasing endo-leakage. The mean interval between operations was 8 days (range 1 to 14 days) in the remaining 8 patients. In 5 of 6 patients who underwent the permanent elephant trunk procedure, a decrease in the size of the aneurysm based on thromboexclusion was observed using serial computed tomography scans. A single stage repair was performed in 1 patient. The 30-day survival rate of all operations was 100%, however, there was 1 in-hospital death (6%) after the second operation. There was no stroke, however, paraplegia occurred after the first operation in 1 patient (6%) of the in-hospital death. No new phrenic or recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy occurred as a result of surgery. ConclusionsThe present technique using a modification of the elephant trunk technique for extensive aortic aneurysm provides acceptable mortality and morbidity. The present strategy would be an alternative for the standard elephant trunk procedure in some high-risk patients with advanced age and comorbidities.