Objective: Current cardiac risk assessments such as EuroSCORE II and the STS-Score do not take liver dysfunction into account. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prevalence and post-operative morbidity risk factors following cardiac surgery of patients with chronic viral hepatitis.
Patients and methods: The study group consisted of 105 patients with documented chronic viral hepatitis who were subject to elective cardiac surgery from 2001 to 2012. Subjects were evaluated for pre-operative liver dysfunction according to the MELD score.
Results: The average MELD score of the study group was 10.00 ± 6.00. The average EuroSCORE ii of the study group was 2.07% ± 1.62%. The primary post-operative complication was cardiac complications (n=57, 54.3%). Analysis showed significant differences in meld score, bilirubin and smoking. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that the variables entering into the model included such risk factors with a significant or near significant (p < 0.2) influence on hospital morbidity and consisted in valve vs. coronary artery disease, valve/cad, aortic valve replacement vs. Coronary artery bypass graft, and bilirubin (mg/dl).
Conclusions: it is vital that liver dysfunction is added to the risk models which are currently utilized to predict the post-operative morbidity of cardiac surgery patients.