Individual surgeon's impact on the risk of re-exploration for excessive bleeding after coronary artery bypass surgery

Objective: Excessive bleeding requiring re-exploration is a severe complication that may affect the outcome after coronary artery bypass grafting. The authors hypothesized that surgeon performance may contribute significantly to such a complication.

Design: Retrospective.

Setting: Tertiary referral center in a university hospital.

Participants: Two thousand one patients.

Interventions: Isolated coronary artery bypass grafting.

Results: Re-exploration for bleeding was performed in 113 patients (5.3%). Re-exploration was performed ≥3 days after surgery in 11 patients. The surgical site of bleeding was identified in 83 patients (73.5%). Rates of re-exploration for excessive bleeding ranged from 1.4% to 11.7% according to different surgeons (p < 0.0001). When adjusted for the additive European System for Cardiac Operative Risk Evaluation, re-exploration for bleeding was associated with increased risks of low-cardiac-output syndrome (odds ratio [OR] 2.239, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.328-3.777), prolonged need for inotropes (OR 1.894, 95% CI 1.198-2.994), and an intensive care unit stay ≥5 days (OR 2.129, 95% CI 1.202-3.770). Logistic regression showed that an individual surgeon (p < 0.0001), preoperative body mass index <25 kg/m(2) (OR 2.733, 95% CI 2.145-3.481), and estimated glomerular filtration rate <30 mL/min/1.73 m(2) (OR 3.891, 95% CI 1.669-9.076) were independent predictors of re-exploration for excessive bleeding. An individual surgeon also was an independent predictor of a postoperative blood loss ≥1,600 mL.

Conclusions: An individual surgeon has a major impact on postoperative bleeding, and a meticulous surgical technique is expected to decrease significantly such a severe complication.