Risk Factors of Sudden Cardiac Arrest during the Postoperative Period in Patient Undergoing Heart Valve Surgery

Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is the sudden cessation of normal cardiac activity with hemodynamic collapse. This usually leads to sudden cardiac death (SCD) when cardiopulmonary resuscitation is not undertaken. In patients undergoing heart valve surgery, postoperative SCA is a complication with a high risk of death, cerebral hypoxia and multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS). Therefore, knowledge of the predictors of postoperative SCA is extremely important as it enables the identification of patients at risk of this complication and the application of the special surveillance and therapeutic management in this group of patients. The aim of the study was to evaluate the usefulness of selected biomarkers in predicting postoperative SCA in patients undergoing heart valve surgery.

This prospective study was conducted on a group of 616 consecutive patients with significant valvular heart disease that underwent elective valve surgery with or without coronary artery bypass surgery. The primary end-point at the intra-hospital follow-up was postoperative SCA. The secondary end-point was death from all causes in patients with postoperative SCA. Patients were observed until discharge from the hospital or until death. Logistic regression was used to assess the relationships between variables.

The postoperative SCA occurred in 14 patients. At multivariate analysis, only NT-proBNP (odds ratio (OR) 1.022, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.012-1.044; p = 0.03) remained independent predictors of the primary end-point. Age and NT-proBNP were associated with an increased risk of death in patients with postoperative SCA.

The results of the presented study indicate that SCA in the early postoperative period in patients undergoing heart valve surgery is an unpredictable event with high mortality. The potential predictive ability of the preoperative NT-proBNP level for the occurrence of postoperative SCA and death in patients after SCA demonstrated in the study may indicate that the overloaded and damaged myocardium in patients undergoing heart valve surgery is particularly sensitive to non-physiological conditions prevailing in the perioperative period, which may cause serious hemodynamic disturbances in the postoperative period and lead to death.