The impact of left ventricular hypertrophy on early and long-term survival after coronary artery bypass grafting.
BACKGROUND
Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) can itself contribute to increased rates of cardiovascular events. We sought to determine the impact of LVH on in-hospital and long-term mortality after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG).


METHODS
Between 1992 and 2003, 4140 consecutive patients underwent CABG. Long-term survival data (mean follow-up 7.0 years) were obtained from the National Death Index. The impact of LVH on in-hospital mortality was determined by multivariate logistic regression analysis. Patients with and without LVH were compared by Cox proportional hazard models and risk-adjusted Kaplan-Meier curves.


RESULTS
There were 977 patients (23.6%) with LVH. Their mean EuroSCORE was 7.4 +/- 3.4 and there were 40 in-hospital deaths (4.1%) in this group. Multivariate logistic regression showed that patients with LVH had less elective operations, higher Canadian Cardiovascular Society Functional Class, more previous myocardial infarctions and higher percentages of 3-vessel disease, hypertension, current congestive heart failure, malignant ventricular arrhythmias, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, calcified aorta, low ejection fraction, intravenous nitroglycerine, previous percutaneous coronary interventions and smoking. After adjustment for all available pre, intra and postoperative variables LVH was not an independent predictor for in-hospital mortality (OR 1.04, 95% CIs 0.60-1.81, P = 0.891). Risk-adjusted Kaplan-Meier survival curves showed decreased long-term survival in patients with LVH after the first 3 years (HR 1.24, 95% CIs 1.06-1.44, P = 0.006).


CONCLUSIONS
Patients with LVH showed similar in-hospital mortality when compared with patients without LVH. However, LVH was a detrimental risk factor for late mortality, especially after the third postoperative year. These data suggest the need for a more frequent long-term follow-up among patients with LVH undergoing CABG.
Toumpoulis
Ioannis K
IK
University of Athens Medical School, Attikon Hospital Center, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Athens, Greece. toumpoul@otenet.gr
Chamogeorgakis
Themistocles P
TP
Angouras
Dimitrios C
DC
Swistel
Daniel G
DG
Anagnostopoulos
Constantine E
CE
Rokkas
Chris K
CK
D000368:Aged; D001026:Coronary Artery Bypass / Q000401:mortality*; D003324:Coronary Artery Disease / Q000401:mortality* / Q000601:surgery*; D016208:Databases, Factual; D005260:Female; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006801:Humans; D017379:Hypertrophy, Left Ventricular / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000401:mortality*; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D012307:Risk Factors; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity