Disease-specific patient-reported quality of life after fenestrated/branched endovascular aortic aneurysm repair.

Abstract

Objectives: Fenestrated-branched endovascular technology (F/B-EVAR) is increasingly used to repair complex aortic aneurysms. While reintervention, morbidity and mortality after F/B-EVAR have been well-characterized, studies on patient-reported quality of life (QOL) after F/B-EVAR have been limited in their use of non-specific instruments and measures. We report on disease-specific QOL in patients that underwent F/B-EVAR using a validated QOL survey for aortic aneurysms.

Methods: Prospectively maintained databases were used to contact living patients that underwent F/B-EVAR for pararenal or thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysms at two institutions. Eligible patients (n = 286) were asked to complete a disease-specific QOL survey previously validated in patients that underwent repair of an infrarenal abdominal aortic aneurysm. An emotional impact score (EIS) from 0-100 was derived from the survey with higher scores indicating more emotional impact and worse QOL. Respondent behavior change following F/B-EVAR was evaluated in four domains (strenuous activity, travel, heavy lifting, and sexual activity) previously identified by patients to be most impacted by an aortic aneurysm.

Results: In total, 234 patients (82%) completed surveys. Mean post-operative interval to survey completion was 3.4 ± 2.8 years. Mean EIS was 16 (range 0-91) for all patients surveyed, with higher mean EIS among those within the first year after F/B-EVAR (20 vs 14). Most respondents demonstrated limited adverse emotional impact after F/B-EVAR. However, the 4^th quartile of EIS was broad (22-91), indicating that a subset of respondents had significantly worse QOL after repair. While most patients reported no post-procedure change in each of the activity domains, over 40% of patients did report decrease in strenuous activity and heavy lifting after F/B-EVAR. Those with decreased activity after repair had corresponding deficiencies in disease-specific knowledge for the domains of heavy lifting (P <.001) and sexual activity (P = .17).

Conclusions: The majority of patients who underwent F/B-EVAR in this cohort had low emotional impact on their QOL after repair. One-quarter of patients did report significant post-procedure anxiety about their aneurysm, with improvement observed beyond one year after repair. Most patients reported unchanged or decreased activity levels following F/B-EVAR, and less aneurysm-specific patient knowledge was associated with decreased activity after repair. These findings are similar to those seen in prior work using this survey instrument in patients that underwent infrarenal aneurysm repair. This work confirms the feasibility of using this survey to evaluate QOL in patients with complex aortic disease. Longitudinal evaluation in these patients may identify those at high-risk for worse QOL after F/B-EVAR.