Cardiovascular daytime varying effect in cardiac surgery on surgical site infections and 1-year mortality: A prospective cohort study with 22,305 patients

Infectious complications following major heart surgery from the day of the surgery to hospital discharge

BACKGROUND

At some point in their lives, many people will require major heart surgery (MHS). Patients are generally older adults with various risk factors for infection. However, the incidence of infection after MHS is poorly known, as reported infection data are frequently biased due to different factors like the surgical procedure, postoperative timing, and infectious syndromes or etiologic agents, among others. In addition, most patient data are retrospectively obtained.

PURPOSE AND METHODS

Data were prospectively collected regarding the incidence of all nosocomial infections produced from the time of surgery to hospital discharge in a cohort of 800 adults consecutively undergoing a MHS procedure.

RESULTS

During postoperative hospitalization, 124 of the 800 participants developed one or more infections (15.5%): during their ICU stay in 68 patients (54.8%), during their stay on the general ward post ICU in 50 (40.3%), and during their stay in both wards in 6 (4.8%). The most common infections were pneumonia (related or not to mechanical ventilation), surgical site and bloodstream. As etiological agents, 193 pathogens were isolated: mostly Gram-negative bacilli (54.4%), followed by Gram-positive bacteria (30%), viruses (4.6%) and fungi (1.5%). In our cohort, all-cause mortality was recorded in 33 participants (4.1%) and 9 infection-related deaths (1.1%) were produced. Among subjects who developed infections, overall mortality was 13.7% and in those who did not, this was only 2.3%.

CONCLUSION

Infection following MHS remains frequent and severe. Our data suggest that hospital-acquired infection studies should consider episodes of infection in all populations during their entire hospital stay and not only those related to specific clinical syndromes or acquired while the patient is in intensive care.

Practices and intravascular catheter infection during on- and off-hours in critically ill patients

Background

The potential relationship between intravascular catheter infections with their insertion during weekend or night-time (i.e., off-hours or not regular business hours) remains an open issue. Our primary aim was to describe differences between patients and catheters inserted during on- versus off-hours. Our secondary aim was to investigate whether insertions during off-hours influenced the intravascular catheter infectious risks.

Methods

We performed a post hoc analysis using the databases from four large randomized-controlled trials. Adult patients were recruited in French ICUs as soon as they required central venous catheters or peripheral arterial (AC) catheter insertion. Off-hours started at 6 P.M. until 8:30 A.M. during the week; at weekend, we defined off-hours from 1 P.M. on Saturday to 8.30 A.M. on Monday. We performed multivariable marginal Cox models to estimate the effect of off-hours (versus on-hours) on major catheter-related infections (MCRI) and catheter-related bloodstream infections (CRBSIs).

Results

We included 7241 patients in 25 different ICUs, and 15,208 catheters, including 7226 and 7982 catheters inserted during off- and on-hours, respectively. Catheters inserted during off-hours were removed after 4 days (IQR 2, 9) in median, whereas catheters inserted during on-hours remained in place for 6 days (IQR 3,10; p < 0.01) in median. Femoral insertion was more frequent during off-hours. Among central venous catheters and after adjusting for well-known risk factors for intravascular catheter infection, we found a similar risk between off- and on-hours for MCRI (HR 0.91, 95% CI 0.61–1.37, p = 0.65) and CRBSI (HR 1.05, 95% CI 0.65–1.68, p = 0.85). Among central venous catheters with a dwell-time > 4 or > 6 days, we found a similar risk for MCRI and CRBSI between off- and on-hours. Similar results were observed for ACs.

Conclusions

Off-hours did not increase the risk of intravascular catheter infections compared to on-hours. Off-hours insertion is not a sufficient reason for early catheter removal, even if femoral route has been selected.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13613-021-00940-3.

Association between In-hospital Mortality and Low Cardiac Output Syndrome with Morning versus Afternoon Cardiac Surgery

BACKGROUND

Recent work suggests that having aortic valve surgery in the morning increases risk for cardiac-related complications. This study therefore explored whether mortality and cardiac complications, specifically low cardiac output syndrome, differ for morning and afternoon cardiac surgeries.

METHODS

The study included adults who had aortic and/or mitral valve repair/replacement and/or coronary artery bypass grafting from 2011 to 2018. The components of the in-hospital composite outcome were in-hospital mortality and low cardiac output syndrome, defined by requirement for at least two inotropic agents at 24 to 48 h postoperatively or need for mechanical circulatory support. Patients who had aortic cross-clamping between 8 and 11 am (morning surgery) versus between 2 and 5 pm (afternoon surgery) were compared on the incidence of the composite outcome.

RESULTS

Among 9,734 qualifying operations, 0.4% (29 of 6,859) died after morning, and 0.7% (20 of 2,875) died after afternoon surgery. The composite of in-hospital mortality and low cardiac output syndrome occurred in 2.8% (195 of 6,859) of morning patients and 3.4% (97 of 2,875) of afternoon patients: morning versus afternoon confounder-adjusted odds ratio, 0.96 (95% CI, 0.75 to 1.24; P = 0.770). There was no evidence of interaction between morning versus afternoon and surgery type (P = 0.965), and operation time was statistically nonsignificant for surgery subgroups.

CONCLUSIONS

Patients having aortic valve surgery, mitral valve surgery, and/or coronary artery bypass grafting with aortic cross-clamping in the morning and afternoon did not have significantly different outcomes. No evidence was found to suggest that morning or afternoon surgical timing alters postoperative risk.

EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE

Will surgeries performed at night lead to worse outcomes? Findings from a trauma center in Riyadh

As surgeries are performed around the clock, the time of surgery might have an impact on outcomes. Our aim is to investigate the impact of daytime and nighttime shifts on surgeons and their performance. We believe that such studies are important to enhance the quality of surgeries and their outcomes and help understand the effects of time of the day on surgeons and the surgeries they perform.A retrospective cohort study was conducted using the database from the King Abdulaziz Medical City trauma center. We selected 330 cases of patients between 2015 and 2018, who underwent a trauma intervention surgery within 24 hours after admission. Patients were aged 15 years and above who underwent 1 or more of the following trauma interventions: neurosurgery, general surgery, plastic surgery, vascular surgery, orthopedics, ophthalmology, and/or otolaryngology. We divided the work hours into 3 shifts: 8 AM to 3:59 PM, 4 PM to 11:59 PM, and midnight to 7:59 AM.Participants' mean age was 31.4 (standard deviation ± 13) years. Most surgeries occurred on weekdays (68.4%). Complications were one and a half times more on weekends, with 5 complicated cases on weekends (1.55%) and 3 (0.9%) on weekdays. Half of all surgeries were performed in the morning (152 cases, 53.15%); 73 surgeries (25.5%) were performed in the evening and 61 (21.3%) were performed late at night. Surgeries performed during late-night shifts were marginally better. Complications occurred in 4 out of 152 morning surgeries (2.6%), 2 out of 73 evening surgeries (2.7%), and only 1 out of 61 late-night surgeries (1.6%). The earlier comparison scored a P-value of >.99, suggesting that patients in morning and evening surgeries were twice more likely to experience complications than late-night surgeries.This study may support previous research that there is little difference in outcomes between daytime and nighttime surgeries. The popular belief that rested physicians are better physicians requires further assessment and research.