Baseline characteristics and procedural features
After reviewing shreds of evidence, a total of 35 studies including 3211 patients were entered into the quantitative analysis (Figure 1)(11-44). The median size of reviewed reports was 72 patients (interquartile range 38 – 122). The majority of studies were performed in Chinese institutions, 19 studies including 2026 patients. The patients’ median age was 52 years (interquartile range 48 – 59). The frequency of male and female genders were 2268 (74.6%) and 773 (25.4%), respectively, reporting by 34 studies. Smoking (208 patients, 43.1%) and hypertension (1827 patients, 70%) were reported by seven and 29 studies. Other baseline characteristics are summarized in Table 1 and Supplementary Table 2.
Emergent/urgent surgery was implemented in 952 patients, reported by 11 studies. The cannulation site was applied in the innominate artery and the axillary artery in 3 studies (245 patients) and 20 studies (1896 patients), respectively. Bentall and David procedures were performed in 566 of 2152 patients (22 studies) and 219 of 1550 patients (14 studies). The ascending aorta replacement was applied in 364 patients, reporting by six studies. The type of stent deployed in the descending aorta included Cronus (MicroPort Medical, Shanghai, China), E-vita (JOTEC™ GmbH, Hechingen, Germany), Thoraflex (Vascutek, Inchinnan, UK), and Frozenix (Japan Lifeline, Tokyo, Japan) that those were implanted in 1413, 315, 250, and 161 patients, respectively. The stent type in other patients is also provided in Table 2. Only 342 patients in four studies reported the use of near-infrared spectroscopy during surgery. The median of HCA time was 31 min (interquartile range 25 – 35), reported by 19 studies. Other surgery-related features are summarized in Table 2.