Quality of Life
In this high-risk elderly population it is paramount to carefully weigh the cost and benefit of intervention. The goal of care is not only to prolong survival, but to provide symptomatic relief allowing patients to enjoy their life and minimize undue risks of adverse events which may take away from it. Coronary revascularization and AVR both greatly increase patient functional status and quality of life compared to medical management[6,11]. TAVR and anaortic OPCAB minimize operative trauma, thus decreasing length of ICU and hospital stay, prolonged ventilation, and need for re-exploration due to bleeding[25,26]. In line with this, all of our patients enjoyed a short length of stay in the ICU as well as the hospital with minimal morbidities associated with our operation. This allowed them to return to their daily lives with improved symptoms, which is the ultimate goal of surgical intervention. Without this technique, many surgeons would deny these high risk, elderly patients an operation as it would technically be contraindicated. We have shown that with this novel technique, surgeons can safely provide these patients with an option to solve both their coronary artery disease and aortic stenosis and overall improve their quality of life. We do anticipate that with our aging population and increased prevalence of atherosclerotic disease, surgeons will be faced with patients like our patients in this cohort more frequently in the coming years.