Canonical correlation analysis of risk factors and clinical outcomes in cardiac surgery

Assessment of the association between risk factors and outcomes in cardiac surgery is a complex problem. The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between possible risk factors and several clinical outcomes in cardiac surgery by using canonical correlation analysis (CCA). This retrospective study of 2605 consecutive adult patients who underwent cardiac surgery, evaluated 74 potential risk factors and up to 12 outcomes by canonical correlation analysis. For three serious outcomes, sternal wound complications/mediastinitis, cerebral complications, and perioperative myocardial infarctions, CCA was preceded by univariate analyses and backward stepwise multivariate logistic regression analyses. The CCA suggests that the major risk factors for complications in these models are intraoperative and postoperative risk factors. The power of risk prediction models developed with multivariate regression analysis can be enhanced by application of canonical correlation analysis, thereby offering new ways of analyzing and interpreting sets of potential risk factors in relation to sets of clinical outcomes.