The impact of coronary anomalies on the outcome in aortic valve surgery: comparison of bicuspid aortic valve versus tricuspid aortic valve morphotype.

OBJECTIVES: The association of anomalous anatomy of coronary arteries and bicuspid aortic valve (BAV) has been sporadically reported. Our aim was to evaluate the prevalence of coronary anomalies between BAV and tricuspid aortic valve (TAV) and to analyse their impact on major adverse cardiac events during and after aortic valve surgery.

METHODS: A total of 1099 consecutive patients who received preoperative coronary evaluation and elective aortic valve replacement/repair between January 2013 and July 2016 at our institution were involved. Based on surgical inspection at the open-heart surgery, a total of 345 (32%) patients were diagnosed with BAV, whereas the remaining 754 (68%) patients had TAV. Coronary anatomy was evaluated by preoperative coronary angiography (n = 1084) or multislice computed tomography (n = 15). The primary end-point was the prevalence of coronary anomalies in BAV versus TAV cohort. Secondary end-points included postoperative cardiac ischaemia markers, postoperative coronary artery imaging or interventions and hospital mortality.

RESULTS: A total of 46 (4%) coronary anomalies were detected and were significantly more frequent in the BAV group (7% vs 3%, P = 0.001). Postoperative markers of myocardial injury (creatine kinase/creatine kinase-MB and troponin) were increased and the need for postoperative coronary angiography/percutaneous coronary intervention was significantly higher in patients with coronary anomalies (12% vs 1%, P < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS: Our study revealed significantly increased prevalence of coronary anomalies in BAV patients when compared with their tricuspid counterparts. Patients with diagnosed coronary anomalies had more postoperative ischaemic cardiac events that resulted in increased morbidity of this cohort.