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Published on: March 27, 2018
Predicting the risk of death from heart failure after coronary artery bypass graft surgery
S D Surgenor1, G T O'Connor, S J Lahey
1Department of Anesthesiology, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA. stephen.d.surgeonor@hitchcock.org
Insights
This study developed a tool to predict fatal heart failure risk in coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) patients. Early identification aids clinicians in managing patient outcomes and improving quality of care.
Area of Science:
- Cardiology
- Surgical Outcomes
- Clinical Risk Prediction
Background:
- Heart failure is the primary cause of death in coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) patients.
- Fatal heart failure accounts for most mortality variations in CABG surgery outcomes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To create a clinical risk assessment tool for predicting fatal heart failure in CABG patients.
- Enable rapid and easy risk evaluation for individual patient care.
Main Methods:
- Prospective data from 8,641 CABG patients were analyzed.
- Logistic regression analysis identified significant predictors of fatal postoperative heart failure.
Main Results:
- Key predictors identified include female sex, prior CABG, low ejection fraction (<40%), urgent surgery, advanced age, peripheral vascular disease, diabetes, dialysis-dependent renal failure, and three-vessel coronary disease.
- The developed risk assessment tool demonstrated good discrimination (ROC AUC = 0.75).
Conclusions:
- A novel clinical risk assessment tool specifically for fatal heart failure in CABG patients was developed.
- This tool is distinct from previous systems predicting overall mortality and is valuable for quality improvement initiatives.
Unlabelled:
Heart failure is the most common cause of death among coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) patients. In addition, most variation in observed mortality rates for CABG surgery is explained by fatal heart failure. The purpose of this study was to develop a clinical risk assessment tool so that clinicians can rapidly and easily assess the risk of fatal heart failure while caring for individual patients. Using prospective data for 8,641 CABG patients, we used logistic regression analysis to predict the risk of fatal heart failure. In multivariate analysis, female sex, prior CABG surgery, ejection fraction <40%, urgent or emergency surgery, advanced age (70-79 yr and >80 yr), peripheral vascular disease, diabetes, dialysis-dependent renal failure and three-vessel coronary disease were significant predictors of fatal postoperative heart failure. A clinical risk assessment tool was developed from this logistic regression model, which had good discriminating characteristics (receiver operating characteristic clinical source = 0.75, 95% confidence interval: 0.71, 0.78).
Implications:
In contrast to previous cardiac surgical scoring systems that predicted total mortality, we developed a clinical risk assessment tool that evaluates risk of fatal heart failure. This distinction is relevant for quality improvement initiatives, because most of the variation in CABG mortality rates is explained by postoperative heart failure.
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