Mid-term Comparison of One-Piece Branched Stent-Graft and Chimney Technique Treating Aortic Arch Pathologies

Purpose We compared the mid-term outcomes of a one-piece branched stent-graft with the chimney technique in the treatment of aortic arch pathologies. Methods Between August 2012 and December 2017, a retrospective analysis of 279 patients with thoracic aortic dissection (TAD) or aneurysm (TAA) who underwent thoracic endovascular aortic repair with b-TEVAR (n = 69, 58 TAD and 11 TAA) or c-TEVAR (n = 210, 151 TAD and 59 TAA) was performed. Results Forty-five double-chimney for the left subclavian artery (LSA) and left common carotid artery LCCA and 165 single-chimney for the LSA were performed in chimney-TEVAR (c-TEVAR) and 69 branched-TEVAR (b-TEVAR) with 36 single-branched stent-grafts and 33 branched stent-grafts combined with fenestration technique. The c-TEVAR group experienced more in-hospital complications than the b-TEVAR group (19.5 vs. 7.2%, p = 0.017), primarily because the c-TEVAR group experienced more in-hospital cerebral ischemia events (6.2 vs. 0%, p = 0.043) and intra-operative type I endoleaks (31.9 vs. 5.8%, p < 0.01). There were significantly more follow-up type I endoleaks (21.9 vs. 4.3%, p = 0.002), cerebral ischemia events (11.0 vs. 2.9%, p = 0.042), and re-interventions (12.9 vs. 4.3%, p = 0.048) in the c-TEVAR group than in the b-TEVAR group. However, follow-up mortality was not significantly different between the c-TEVAR and b-TEVAR groups (5.2 vs. 2.9%, p = 0.638). Conclusion In patients with aortic pathologies involving the arch branches, customized b-TEVAR may result in fewer cerebral ischemia events and endoleaks than c-TEVAR. However, c-TEVAR should be considered an off-the-shelf treatment option for patients in need of emergency treatment.