Intraoperative hypotension is associated with decreased long-term survival in older patients after major noncardiac surgery: Secondary analysis of three randomized trials

Abstract

Study objective: To assess the association of intraoperative hypotension with long-term survivals in older patients after major noncardiac surgery mainly for cancer.

Design: A secondary analysis of databases from three randomized trials with long-term follow-up.

Setting: The underlying trials were conducted in 17 tertiary hospitals in China.

Patients: Patients aged 60 to 90 years who underwent major noncardiac thoracic or abdominal surgeries (≥ 2 h) in a single center were included in this analysis.

Exposures: Restricted cubic spline models were employed to determine the lowest mean arterial pressure (MAP) threshold that was potentially harmful for long-term survivals. Patients were arbitrarily divided into three groups according to the cumulative duration or area under the MAP threshold. The association between intraoperative hypotension exposure and long-term survivals were analyzed with the Cox proportional hazard regression models.

Measurements: Our primary endpoint was overall survival. Secondary endpoints included recurrence-free and event-free survivals.

Main results: A total of 2664 patients (mean age 69.0 years, 34.9% female sex, 92.5% cancer surgery) were included in the final analysis. MAP < 60 mmHg was adopted as the threshold of intraoperative hypotension. Patients were divided into three groups according to duration under MAP < 60 mmHg (<1 min, 1-10 min, and > 10 min) or area under MAP <60 mmHg (< 1 mmHg⋅min, 1-30 mmHg⋅min, and > 30 mmHg⋅min). After adjusting confounders, duration under MAP < 60 mmHg for > 10 min was associated with a shortened overall survival when compared with the < 1 min patients (adjusted hazard ratio [HR] 1.31, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.09 to 1.57, P = 0.004); area under MAP < 60 mmHg for > 30 mmHg⋅min was associated with a shortened overall survival when compared with the < 1 mmHg⋅min patients (adjusted HR 1.40, 95% CI 1.16 to 1.68, P < 0.001). Similar associations exist between duration under MAP < 60 mmHg for > 10 min or area under MAP < 60 mmHg for > 30 mmHg⋅min and recurrence-free or event-free survivals.

Conclusions: In older patients who underwent major noncardiac surgery mainly for cancer, intraoperative hypotension was associated with worse overall, recurrence-free, and event-free survivals.

Keywords: Aged; Hypotension; Intraoperative care; Neoplasms; Surgery; Survival.