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Figure 1. Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) diagram.

involvement extent, dissection-based clinical complications, and aortic false lumen-based thrombi), the
clinician is provided contemporary therapeutic approaches to consider. Although not data-driven, this
clinical consensus is based on best practices and current knowledge. Interestingly, other patient
characteristics (i.e., AF) are not considered as part of the DISSECT system’s risk assessment evaluation.
Moreover, the recent TAA guidelines are silent on the topics of pre-operative and post-operative atrial
fibrillation [9,10] .

PRE-OPERATIVE ATRIAL FIBRILLATION PREVALENCE IN TAA REPAIR
The literature documenting the prevalence of baseline atrial fibrillation in TAA repair patients is scant.
[9]
Matsuura et al. found that 5% of patients receiving total arch repair for atherosclerotic aortic arch
[10]
aneurysm or aortic dissection had baseline atrial fibrillation. Another study by Sorabella et al. found that
14.2% of non-octogenarians had baseline AF compared to 26.5% of octogenarians at the time of undergoing
aortic root replacement surgery. More research is needed to study the TAA pre-operative AF prevalence
and study the impact of pre-operative TAA patients’ AF upon their post-operative outcomes.