Improved surgical techniques and intensive care management have dramatically reduced perioperative complications and mortality after cardiac surgery over the last two decades [1]. Therefore, indications to cardiac surgery are nowadays increasingly extended to patients aged 80+ years [1], often in the past excluded due to unacceptable risk of death and major morbidity, as estimated by risk assessment scores of common use. Despite these remarkable improvements, perioperative complications and mortality, as well as long-term unfavorable outcomes, remain common in older persons [2].
