Editor's Choice - Branched Endovascular Aneurysm Repair with Inner and Outer Branches: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE

This systematic review aimed to assess the clinical outcomes of branched endovascular aneurysm repair (BEVAR) with inner branches (iBEVAR) and inner/outer branches (oBEVAR).

DATA SOURCES: A systematic literature review was performed using the electronic bibliographic databases MEDLINE, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library up to May 2024.

REVIEW

METHODS

The review was designed and reported in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Eligible studies reported death, technical failure, primary target vessel (TV) patency, TV related complications, branch related re-interventions, and spinal cord ischaemia (SCI). Risk of bias was evaluated with the ROBINS-I tool.

RESULTS

Twenty seven observational studies reporting a total of 1 780 patients treated with BEVAR and 6 633 TVs were included. Three hundred and eightysix patients (84.3%) were treated electively with iBEVAR and 72 (15.6%) urgently vs. 845 (63.2%) and 491 (36.7%) with oBEVAR, respectively. The pooled estimate of 30 day death was 4.9% (95% confidence interval [CI] 2.9 - 8.2%) for iBEVAR and 7.6% (95% CI 4.9 - 11.7%) for oBEVAR. Overall mortality rates were 13.8% (95% CI 9.7 - 19.1%) for iBEVAR vs. 15.4% (95% CI 10.6 - 21.9%) for oBEVAR. The rate of SCI was 6.5% (95% CI 4.2 - 10.0%) in iBEVAR compared with 12.9% (95% CI 9.6 - 17.1%) in oBEVAR. Primary TV patency was similar between iBEVAR (97.3%, 95% CI 94.8 - 98.6%) and oBEVAR (97.6%, 95% CI 95.3 - 98.7%). TV related complication rates were 2.9% (95% CI 2.0 - 4.1%) for iBEVAR vs. 3.9% (95% CI 2.7 - 5.6%) for oBEVAR. Technical failure rates were 4.1% (95% CI 2.4 - 6.9%) for iBEVAR vs. 5.7% (95% CI 3.5 - 9.1%) for oBEVAR. Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) certainty was low or very low for all outcomes.

CONCLUSION

BEVAR with inner and inner/outer branches has been used in elective and urgent cases, as well as across a variety of anatomies, with both designs demonstrating satisfactory clinical outcomes.