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Complications After Cardiac Operations: All Are Not Created Equal

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Submitted by

Arie Blitz

Source

Source Name: Annals of Thoracic Surgery

Source URL: http://www.annalsthoracicsurgery.org/article/S0003-4975(16)31470-9/fulltext

Author(s)

Todd C. Crawford, MD, J. Trent Magruder, MD, Joshua C. Grimm, MD, Alejandro Suarez-Pierre, MD, Christopher M. Sciortino, MD, Kaushik Mandal, MD, Kenton J. Zehr, MD, John V. Conte, MD, Robert S. Higgins, MD, Duke E. Cameron, MD, Glenn J. Whitman, MD

The Johns Hopkins group reviewed their postoperative complications after heart surgery in 2,477 adult patients from 2011 and 2014 to determine the effect of the number of major complications on the primary outcome of death (as well as several secondary outcomes). The study found the following rates of mortality by the number of complications:

0 Complications: 0.7% mortality
1 Complication: 4.1% mortality
>1 Complication: 41% mortality

Question: What impact, if any, might the results of this study have on your practice?