A decade of cardiothoracic surgery at a tertiary care hospital in Karachi, Pakistan.
OBJECTIVE
The medical records at Aga Khan University were reviewed to analyze the trends, mortality and patients characteristics of cardiothoracic surgeries in the last decade.


METHODS
The medical records of all adult cardiac, thoracic and combined cardiothoracic operations performed during January 1995 to December 2004 at the Aga Khan University Hospital were reviewed. Data were retrieved and analyzed for trends, patient characteristics, and procedure mortality.


RESULTS
From January 1995 - December 2004, 4553 cases were eligible for the study, of which 73% were males and 9.4% were children. Male to female ratio changed from 1.3:1 to 3:1 from childhood to adulthood. Number of patients requiring cardiothoracic intervention increased continuously throughout the period, cardiac operations outnumbering thoracic or combined procedures. Ten-year average annual mortality remained 4.8% with slight variation per annum. Age distribution of cardiac surgery patients remained the same, however, constantly increasing number of over-70-year olds was observed. Mortality for isolated CABG, isolated valve and CABG with valve remained 1.9%, 4.3% and 18.3% respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
Trends of cardiothoracic procedures appear similar to those in the developed countries, so are the mortality figures.
Department of Surgery, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan.
Fahad Javaid
FJ
Siddiqui
Shahid Ahmed
SA
Sami
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006331:Heart Diseases / Q000401:mortality / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010154:Pakistan; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013534:Survival; D013896:Thoracic Diseases / Q000401:mortality / Q000601:surgery*; D013903:Thoracic Surgery / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*