title: Risk of aortocoronary bypass surgery in a low-volume inner city hospital.
abstract: Incidence of coronary heart disease deaths has been reported to be higher in low socioeconomic groups compared to affluent subjects. In addition, a higher mortality rate has been reported at centers doing fewer open heart surgeries. This article presents evidence in variance with these convictions. We report a single team's experience with coronary artery surgery on 76 low socioeconomic, predominantly black patients (84%) over a period of 8 years. The volume of open heart surgery per year was less than 20. The overall mortality rate of 5.3%, infection rate of 1.3%, and perioperative infarction rate of 7.9% are not significantly different from the reported experience of high-volume surgical centers on similar patients during the same period. Thus, it is possible to obtain comparable results of myocardial revascularization surgery in low-volume, socioeconomically disadvantaged, inner city minority populations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery and Medicine, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, Los Angeles, CA.
authors.forename: A K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Mandal
authors.forename: V S
authors.initials: VS
authors.lastname: Kaushik
authors.forename: S S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Oparah
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001026:Coronary Artery Bypass / Q000401:mortality / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006786:Hospitals, Urban / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D015141:Los Angeles; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011203:Poverty; D044469:Racial Groups; D012307:Risk Factors