Does Endovascular Repair for Blunt Traumatic Aortic Injuries Provide Better Outcomes Compared to Its Open Technique? A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Introduction: Traumatic aortic injuries are devastating events in terms of high mortality and morbidity in most survivors. We aimed to compare the outcomes of endovascular repair (ER) vs. open repair (OR) in the treatment of traumatic aortic injuries. Methods: PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library were systematically searched. Postoperative mortality was the primary endpoint. Secondary endpoints included intensive care unit (ICU) length of stay, hospital length of stay, operating time, paraplegia, stroke, acute renal failure, and reoperation rate. The Mantel-Haenszel method (random-effects model) with odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals (OR (95% CI)), and the inverse variance method with the mean difference (MD (95% CI)), were used to measure the effects of continuous and categorical variables, respectively. Results: A total of 49 studies involving 12,857 patients were included. Postoperative mortality was not significantly different between the two groups (p=0.459). Among secondary outcomes, the paraplegia rate was significantly lower after ER (p=0.032). Other secondary endpoints such as ICU length of stay (p=0.329), hospital length of stay (p=0.192), operating time (p=0.973), stroke rate (p=0.121), ARF rate (p=0.928), and reoperation rate (p=0.643) did not significantly differ between the two groups. Conclusion: This meta-analysis found that ER was associated with a reduced paraplegia rate compared to OR for the management of traumatic aortic injury.