Mortality and Readmission Outcomes for Intensive and Conventional Cardiac Rehabilitation (MR-OFICR) Study

Cardiac rehabilitation programs are offered in two major formats: Conventional Cardiac Rehab (CCR), which is primarily based on exercise interventions, and Intensive Cardiac Rehabilitation (ICR), which is a holistic approach including dietary modifications with a plant-based diet and wellness counseling. We performed a retrospective cohort study to compare the CCR and ICR groups for the primary composite outcome of Major Adverse Cardiac Event (MACE) at two years. The MACE outcome was 2-year mortality, unstable angina requiring hospitalization, Myocardial Infarction (MI), Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG), Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI), and stroke. Secondary outcomes were overall mortality, and number of readmissions. There were 2104 patients included in the statistical analysis with 963 in the CCR group and 1141 in the ICR group. We found that there were no significant differences in MACE events between ICR and CCR (OR = 1.10; 95 % CI = 0.81-1.49; p = 0.55). Readmissions were higher in the ICR group than the CCR group, with 34.1 % vs 28.6 % (p = 0.006), respectively. Additionally, older age was associated with more MACE events (OR = 1.16; 95 % CI = 1.07-1.25; p < 0.001). Overall, our study did not demonstrate a difference in the composite MACE outcome between ICR and CCR.