Background:
Clinically isolated aortitis (CIA) is condition which consists of non-infectious inflammation topographically limited to the thoracic aorta without any other signs or symptoms suggestive of a systemic inflammatory disease. It is usually diagnosed incidentally on histopathology after cardiothoracic aortic repair surgery. There is little evidence regarding long term outcomes for patients with CIA and no previous studies have examined comparisons of immediate post-surgical complication or re-operation rates with controls. As such, clinicians base decisions about post-operative immunosuppressive treatment of these patients largely upon individual experience and clinical judgment.
There is a clear need to gather more information about the nature of CIA and its outcomes in order to help direct therapeutic decisions in patients who have had an incidental finding of CIA.
Methods:
The overall aim of this study was to compare the 30 day post-thoracic aortic surgery outcomes and the re-operation rates of CIA patients with a control group who did not have aortitis found on their histopathology.
The study was performed at three Sydney hospitals which collect surgical outcome data for all patients who have undergone thoracic aortic repair surgery. Surgical patients with thoracic aortitis were identified from histopathology records over the period of January 2004 to December 2018. All thoracic aortic repair patients were then classified as either having CIA or aortitis as part of a systemic disease (based upon their medical records) or non-aortitis. 30 day post-surgical mortality, morbidity and re-operation rates were compared between CIA patients and all non-aortitis patients and between all aortitis patients and all non-aortitis patients.
Results:
As this study is underway partial results will be presented at the meeting.
Conclusions:
Early discussion will be presented at the meeting.