Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on complications and mortality of patients with cardiac surgery

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to assess changes in cardiovascular disease severity, types, postoperative complications and prognosis during the COVID-19 pandemic and to explore possible influencing factors. METHODS: A total of 422 patients were enrolled in this study, and hospitalization and short-term follow-up data were retained. The patient population included 273 men and 149 women. Patients had a median (IQR) age of 54 (45–62) years and were divided into an observation group (130) and a control group (292), primarily according to severity of disease, disease types, baseline indexes, biochemical indexes, cardiac function indexes, complications and prognosis. RESULTS: During the COVID-19 pandemic, compared with the same period last year, there was a significant increase in patients with aortic dissection (27.69% vs 5.82%), a significant decrease in patients with valvular heart disease (43.08% vs 66.78%), and significantly increased emergency admission (50.00% vs 21.23%) and severity (54.62% vs 27.40%). Family company (76.37% vs 64.62%) was decreased, EuroSCORE [6.5 (2–9) vs 2 (0–5)] score, Pro-BNP [857.50 (241.00–2222.50) vs 542.40 (113.45–1776.75)] ng/L, six months mortality rate (18.46% vs 8.90%), and postoperative complications, including infected patients, atelectasis, pulmonary edema, and so on were increased, with longer length of stay in the ICU and hospital in COVID-19 pandemic. Survival analysis curve further demonstrated that it had an impact on the deaths of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic period. Through ROC analysis of the death factors of patients, it was concluded that Family company affected the death of patients, and the area under the curve was 0.654 (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: In this study, we found that the admission rate of critically ill patients with cardiovascular disease, complications of cardiac surgery, and short-term mortality of patients all exhibited a short-term increase, family company may be a risk factors for short-term mortality, that may be related to public pressure caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.