Purpose: To correlate the Hardman prognostic index with perioperative mortality in patients undergoing open and endovascular repair of ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm (rAAA).
Methods: Over a 5-year period, 126 patients (109 men; mean age 74 years, range 51-91) underwent open (n=74) or endovascular (n=52) repair of rAAA in a single unit. Five Hardman factors (age>76 years, history of loss of consciousness, ECG evidence of ischemia, hemoglobin<9.0 g/dL, and serum creatinine>0.19 mmol/L) were assessed, and their association with in-hospital or 30-day mortality was evaluated retrospectively by chi-square or logistic regression analysis.
Results: The mortality for open repair was 51.4% (38/74) in comparison to 32.7% (17/52) for the endovascular group (p=0.05). On multivariate analysis, loss of consciousness (p=0.03, OR 2.9, 95% CI 1.1 to 7.5) was the only significant predictor of mortality in both groups. The mortality rates for open repair patients with Hardman scores<2 were 43.5% (20/46) in comparison to 22.9% (8/35) for the endovascular group (p=0.06), whereas mortality rates for patients with scores>or=2 were 64.3% (18/28) and 52.9% (9/17) for the respective groups (p=0.54).
Conclusion: The Hardman index correlates well with mortality in both the open and endovascular groups. Those with a score<2 have a trend toward better survival following endovascular repair compared to open repair, while this benefit is not obvious in patients with a score>or=2.