The association of body composition assessment with hospital length of stay in off-pump coronary artery bypass patients

INTRODUCTION: Bioelectrical impedance analysis is a widely available, non-invasive method for body composition assessment. AIM: To elucidate the perioperative body composition alterations and their prognostic utility for hospital length of stay (LOS) in low risk, off-pump coronary artery bypass (OPCAB) patients. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Fifty patients undergoing elective OPCAB were included in the study. Body composition assessments were performed 1 day before the scheduled surgery and on the 6th postoperative day. Patients were grouped into < 9 days (n = 29, 58%) and ≥ 9 days (n = 21, 42%). Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to create a body composition-based screening panel for prolonged hospital stay. RESULTS: No significant differences in anthropometric measurements, clinical characteristics or occurrence of postoperative complications were detected between the study groups. Patients with longer hospitalization had significantly higher content of fat mass (FM%) and fat mass index (FMI), and significantly lower content of fat free mass (FFM%) baseline parameters (p = 0.011, p = 0.04 and p = 0.012, respectively). High FM% values had 15-fold, low FFM% values had 13-fold and high FMI values had 7-fold higher risk of experiencing longer stay in the hospital (p = 0.001, p = 0.001 and p = 0.005, respectively). The combined panel of three variables (higher FM%, lower FFM% and higher FMI) had 16-fold higher risk of longer hospitalization (adjusted OR = 16.40; 95% CI: 3.52–76.34; p = 0.0004). CONCLUSIONS: Preoperative high FM and low FFM content are independent predictors of prolonged hospital length of stay in normal- and increased-BMI patients after OPCAB.