German Heart Surgery Report 2024: The Annual Updated Registry of the German Society for Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery

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.