Abstract
Based on a voluntary registry, founded by the German Society for Thoracic and Cardiovascular
Surgery (DGTHG) in 1980, well-defined but limited datasets of all cardiac and vascular
surgery procedures performed in 77 German heart surgery departments are reported annually.
For the year 2024, a total of 178,547 procedures were submitted to the registry. A
total of 103,617 of these operations are defined as heart surgery procedures in a
classical sense. The unadjusted in-hospital survival rate for the 28,843 isolated
coronary artery bypass grafting procedures (relationship on-/off-pump 2.5:1) was 97.8%.
A total of 97.2% for the 45,422 isolated heart valve procedures (24,957 transcatheter
interventions included) and 99.3% for 20,114 pacemaker/implantable cardioverter defibrillator
procedures, respectively. Concerning short- and long-term mechanical circulatory support,
a total of 3,168 extracorporeal life support/extracorporeal membrane oxygenation implantations,
and 809 ventricular assist device implantations (L-/R-/biventricular assist device,
total artificial heart) were reported. In 2024, 348 isolated heart transplantations,
287 isolated lung transplantations, and 2 combined heart–lung transplantations were
performed. This annually updated registry of the DGTHG represents nonrisk-adjusted
voluntary public reporting encompasses actual data for nearly all heart surgical procedures
in Germany, constitutes trends in heart medicine, and represents a basis for quality
management (e.g., benchmark) for all participating institutions.
Keywords
heart valve surgery - congenital heart disease - coronary artery bypass graft surgery
- aorta/aortic - transplantation, heart - transplantation, heart–lung
