Study selection and characteristics
After application of inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 46 studies5-50 consisting of 6313 patients included in this meta-analysis (Figure 1). The patients’ mean age was 57.5 (95% CI 55.1 to 55.9). The frequency of males and females was 73% (95% CI 70 to 76) and 27% (95% CI 23.8 to 30), respectively, reporting by forty-five studies. The cumulative frequency of acute dissection, chronic dissection, and aneurysm in studies reporting aortic pathologies was 72.5% (95% CI 60.1 to 84.2), 36.2% (95% CI 24 to 48.4), and 48.2% (95% CI 34.1 to 62.3), respectively. The prevalence of prior cerebrovascular accidents and chronic kidney disease was 7.7% (95% CI 5.3 to 10.1) and 12.5 % (95% CI 5.4 to 19.7), respectively. The FET hybrid stent graft is mostly used in China (17 studies including 3314 patients), Japan (8 studies including 526 patients), and Germany (8 studies including 425 patients). Other baseline characteristics are summarized in Table 1 and Supplementary Table 2.
A total of 258 and 1000 patients underwent only elective or only emergent/urgent surgeries in 7 and 10 studies, respectively. Concomitant Bentall and David surgeries were performed in 22.2% (95% CI 15.6 to 28.8) and 10.7% (95% CI 5.6 to 15.7) of patients reporting by 27 and 21 studies, respectively. The mostly used FET stents included Cronus® (MicroPort Medical, Shanghai, China), E-vita® (JOTEC™ GmbH, Hechingen, Germany), and Thoraflex Hybrid® (Vascutek, Inchinnan, UK) in 3194, 1612, 1011 patients, respectively. Other surgical features were summarized in Table 2.