Clinical Results
The postoperative course mainly was uneventful. Majority of the patients (n=54/77; 70.1%) had an ICU-stay less than 24 hours. Neither low cardiac output nor postoperative myocardial infarction or stroke were observed. One patient suffered from postoperative bleeding, needing re-exploration (n=1/77; 1.3%). Three patients had postoperative respiratory failure needing reintubation (n=3/77; 3.9%). Main postoperative morbidity consisted of delirium in 9.1% (n=7/77) of the patients. Mean hospital averaged 12.8 ± 6.6 days. One patient (n=1/77; 1.3%) died during primary hospital stay in consequence of pneumonia. Further clinical results are summarized in Table 1 .