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. 2019 May 22;17(1):88.
doi: 10.1186/s12955-019-1160-7.

Quality of life 10 years after cardiac surgery in adults: a long-term follow-up study

Andrea Perrotti  1   2 , Fiona Ecarnot  3   4 , Francesco Monaco  1   5 , Enrica Dorigo  1 , Palmiero Monteleone  6 , Guillaume Besch  2   7 , Sidney Chocron  1   2
Affiliations

Quality of life 10 years after cardiac surgery in adults: a long-term follow-up study

Andrea Perrotti et al. Health Qual Life Outcomes. .

Abstract

Background: Quality of life (QoL) is a multifactorial concept that assesses physical and mental health. We prospectively studied the quality of life of patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery using the Short-Form 36-item questionnaire (SF-36) up to 10 years after surgery.

Methods: Between January 2000 and December 2002, all patients undergoing elective isolated CABG in the cardiac & thoracic surgery department of a large university hospital in Eastern France underwent initial QoL evaluation with the SF-36. The same questionnaire was mailed to every patient annually (± 2 weeks around the date of surgery) up to 10 years after their operation. We recorded socio-demographic and clinical variables at inclusion. Predictors of impaired QoL at 10 years were identified by logistic regression.

Results: A total of 272 patients (213 men, 59 women) were enrolled; mean age at inclusion was 65 ± 10 years. At 10 years post-surgery, 81 patients had died (29.7%). The physical component summary (PCS) score was significantly higher at 5 years after surgery than at baseline (p < 0.01), and significantly lower at 10 years than at 5 years (p < 0.01), although there remained a significant difference between 10-year PCS and baseline score (p = 0.004). The mental component summary (MCS) score was significantly higher at 5 years than at the time of surgery (p < 0.001), and remained significantly higher compared to baseline at 10 years after surgery (p = 0.010). By multivariate analysis, diabetes and dypsnea were both associated with worse PCS at 10 years, while lower age was associated with better 10-year PCS. Only diabetes was associated with impaired MCS at 10 years.

Conclusions: Cardiac surgery appears to durably and positively affect both physical and mental components of quality of life.

Keywords: Cardiac surgery; Coronary artery bypass graft; Follow up; Quality of life.

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Conflict of interest statement

No author has any competing interests to declare.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Physical component and mental component summary scores before surgery and over the 10 years of follow-up
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

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