Supervivencia, estado clínico y calidad de vida a los cinco años de la cirugía coronaria. Estudio ARCA

Single-center large-cohort study into quality of life in Dutch intensive care unit subgroups, 1 year after admission, using EuroQoL EQ-6D-3L

PURPOSE

The goal of this study was to describe long-term survival and health-related quality of life (HRQoL), measured by EQ-6D, in a general intensive care unit (ICU) population.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We included 5934 consecutive adult patients admitted to a mixed-population ICU. There were no exclusion criteria. One-year survival status was determined using the Dutch municipal population register. Subsequently, all survivors received the EuroQoL EQ-6D-3L questionnaire. The primary outcome was overall HRQoL and survival of the ICU survivors, compared to overall QoL of an age- and sex-matched reference population.

RESULTS

A total of 5138 patients (86.6%) survived until hospital discharge, with 4647 (78.3%) patients surviving the 1-year of follow-up. The EuroQoL questionnaire was sent to 4465 survivors and returned by 3034 (68.0%) of 4465. The median HRQoL in surviving patients was 0.83 (interquartile range [IQR], 0.64-1.00) vs 0.86 (IQR, 0.85-0.86) in the reference population (P < .001). There was marked variation across admission diagnosis groups: cardiac surgery patients had an HRQoL of 0.94 (IQR, 0.74-1.00), whereas patients admitted with chronic renal failure had an HRQoL of 0.65 (IQR, 0.47-0.83).

CONCLUSIONS

One year after ICU admission, HRQoL was significantly lower than in the reference population. Notably, marked variations were found across subgroups.

Survival and quality of life in an elderly cardiac surgery population: 5-year follow-up

OBJECTIVES

As survival after cardiac surgery has become very satisfactory even in elderly patients, more attention is being directed towards improved health-related quality of life (HRQOL). However, longitudinal prospective cohort studies describing HRQOL after cardiac surgery are still scarce. The purpose of this study was to explore HRQOL and survival in patients undergoing cardiac surgery after 5 years, emphasizing on older patients (≥75 years).

METHODS

In a prospective population-based study, 534 patients (23% ≥75 years, 67% males) were consecutively included before surgery. HRQOL and medical and sociodemographic variables were measured by questionnaires at baseline, 6 and 12 months after surgery and again after 5 years. HRQOL was measured by the Short-Form 36 Health Survey (SF-36).

RESULTS

Four hundred and fifty-eight patients were alive after 5 years, with a response rate of 82%. Older patients had lower 5-year survival than younger patients (P = 0.042), but it was similar to that of the general population. After 5 years, both older and younger patients had slightly lower scores on some SF-36 dimensions, compared with scores after 6 and 12 months. However, on seven of eight subscales of the SF-36, the scores after 5 years were still higher than before surgery. Older patients improved less from baseline to the follow-up, and had more profound reductions in scores from 12 months to 5 years on three subscales; physical functioning (P = 0.013), role physical (P < 0.001) and vitality (P = 0.036).

CONCLUSIONS

HRQOL improved from baseline to 6 months postoperatively, and remained relatively stable 5 years after cardiac surgery even in elderly patients. The study showed that survival and HRQOL can match that of the general population.

Coronary artery bypass surgery in patients with low EuroSCORE preoperative risk

Patients with EuroSCORE <2 are usually considered to have a low surgical risk and the lowest mortality. In our study preoperative factors in a group of 250 consecutive low-risk patients (EuroSCORE<2), who underwent first isolated coronary artery by-pass surgery during 1999 and 2000., were analyzed. Cumulative follow-up period was 1178.48 patient-years and the primary clinical outcome was all-cause mortality. Patients’ average age was 59.2±7.5 yr. The following preoperative risk factors of increased 5-year mortality were identified: older age (P<0.001), smoking, prior non-recent myocardial infarction and reinfarction, anteroseptal localization of myocardial infarction (P<0.001), poor ejection fraction<=35% (P<0.001), dilatative cardiomyopathy (P<0.001), wall motion systolic index 〉2 (P<0.001), left atrial dilatation (P<0.001), mitral regurgitation more than 2+ (P<0.001), presence of left main disease, triple vessel coronary artery disease (P<0.001), absence of collaterals (P<0.001) and presence of more than 3 distal anastomoses. Through the present study it has been shown that it is possible to identify a subgroup of patients with low operative mortality and excellent 5-year survival after surgical treatment for coronary artery bypass surgery using preoperative clinical, echocardiographic, coronarographic and intraoperative data, even in difficult conditions of the civil war in the region.