Dynamics in cardiac surgery: trends in population characteristics and the performance of the EuroSCORE II over time

The aim of this study was to investigate the performance of the EuroSCORE II over time and dynamics in values of predictors included in the model.

A cohort study was performed using data from the Netherlands Heart Registration. All cardiothoracic surgical procedures performed between 1 January 2013 and 31 December 2019 were included for analysis. Performance of the EuroSCORE II was assessed across 3-month intervals in terms of calibration and discrimination. For subgroups of major surgical procedures, performance of the EuroSCORE II was assessed across 12-month time intervals. Changes in values of individual EuroSCORE II predictors over time were assessed graphically.

A total of 103 404 cardiothoracic surgical procedures were included. Observed mortality risk ranged between 1.9% [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.6-2.4] and 3.6% (95% CI 2.6-4.4) across 3-month intervals, while the mean predicted mortality risk ranged between 3.4% (95% CI 3.3-3.6) and 4.2% (95% CI 3.9-4.6). The corresponding observed:expected ratios ranged from 0.50 (95% CI 0.46-0.61) to 0.95 (95% CI 0.74-1.16). Discriminative performance in terms of the c-statistic ranged between 0.82 (95% CI 0.78-0.89) and 0.89 (95% CI 0.87-0.93). The EuroSCORE II consistently overestimated mortality compared to observed mortality. This finding was consistent across all major cardiothoracic surgical procedures. Distributions of values of individual predictors varied broadly across predictors over time. Most notable trends were a decrease in elective surgery from 75% to 54% and a rise in patients with no or New York Heart Association I class heart failure from 27% to 33%.

The EuroSCORE II shows good discriminative performance, but consistently overestimates mortality risks of all types of major cardiothoracic surgical procedures in the Netherlands.