We reviewed 358 consecutive patients with a mean age of 69 +/- 10 years undergoing aortic arch repair with selective cerebral perfusion between January 1993 and February 2004. Observed in-hospital mortality was compared with predicted mortality as determined by both additive and logistic EuroSCOREs. We also evaluated a version of the EuroSCORE modified for age, which was obtained by subtracting the contribution of age from the original EuroSCORE