Perioperative Ischemic Optic Neuropathy after Cardiac Surgery: Development and Validation of a Preoperative Risk...

Previous studies identified risk factors for ischemic optic neuropathy (ION) after cardiac surgery; however, there is no easy-to-use risk calculator for the physician to identify high-risk patients for ION before cardiac surgery. The authors sought to develop and validate a simple-to-use predictive model and calculator to assist with preoperative identification of risk and informed consent for this rare but serious complication.

Retrospective case-control study.

Hospital discharge records.

A total of 5,561,177 discharges in the National Inpatient Sample >18 years of age, with procedure codes for coronary artery bypass grafting, heart valve repair/replacement, or left ventricular assist device insertion.

All patients had undergone cardiac surgery.

Known preoperative risk factors for ION after cardiac surgery were assessed to develop a risk score and prediction model. This model was validated internally using the split-sample method. There were 771 cases of ION among 5,561,177 patients in the National Inpatient Sample. The risk factors for ION used in the model were carotid artery stenosis, cataract, diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration, glaucoma, male sex, and prior stroke; whereas uncomplicated diabetes decreased risk. With the internal validation, the predictive model had an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.66. A risk score cutoff ≥3 had 98.4% specificity.

This predictive model, based on previously identified preoperative factors, predicted risk of perioperative ION with a fair area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. This predictive model could enable screening to provide a more accurate risk assessment for ION, and consent process for cardiac surgery.