Results
The characteristics of the patients are presented in Table 1. The
average age of patients is highly variable with a minimum value of 12
years and a maximum of 86 years.
From the immediate postoperative period to the entire follow-up, which
had a mean duration of 4.1 ± 2.2 years (median 3.9), a total of 24
deaths (2.68%) were recorded (see Kaplan-Meier curve, Figure 3).
Furthermore, 24 patients required rehospitalization for cardiac causes,
13 (1.4%) patients at follow-up echocardiography had at least moderate
mitral insufficiency and, of these, 7 patients underwent reoperation
(0.8%). The cumulative hazard showed that 8.3% of patients experienced
at least one event at 5 years (Figure n6
At a mean follow-up of 4.1 years, there was no difference in survival
between men and women. At 6 and 8 years, survival rates were 90% vs
91% and 89% vs 91% in female vs male patients, respectively (p =
0.71) (Figure 5). NYHA class improved significantly during follow-up,
with 874 patients in NYHA class I, 13 in NYHA class II, 6 in NYHA class
III, and 0 in NYHA class IV at last follow-up (p <0.001 from
baseline as reference point) (Figure 6). No significant differences in
deaths from cardiac and non-cardiac causes were recorded at follow-up (p
= 0.9) (Figure 7).