Long-term outcomes following minimal invasive versus conventional aortic valve replacement: a propensity match analysis.

Introduction: Minimal invasive aortic valve replacement has become a routine procedure. In this study, we compared the outcomes between conventional and minimal invasive aortic valve replacement via the partial upper sternotomy that were performed in our Institution.
Methods: The 5 year survival and postoperative outcomes of 34 patients that underwent isolated MIAVR between the years 2010-2013 were compared with the outcomes of 34 randomly selected patients that underwent conventional AVR, after propensity match analysis.
Results: There was no difference between the two groups concerning the early and late postoperative outcomes. MIAVR patients had a longer mean cross-clamp time (p = 0.002) and longer cardiopulmonary bypass time (p = 0.0005) compared to the AVR patients. 5 year mortality and survival were 4.17 % vs 16.67 % (p = 0.20) and 95.8 % vs 83.3 % (p = 0.37) in the MIAVR and AVR groups respectively.
Conclusion: This study showed a comparable 5 year survival and postoperative outcomes between the MIAVR and AVR groups. In our opinion, the minimal access aortic valve replacement can be performed safely with excellent long-term results in selected patients (Tab. 4, Fig. 1, Ref. 35).