How Is Surgical Risk Best Assessed? A Cohort Comparison of Measures in Total Joint Arthroplasty.

BACKGROUND: We designed this study to determine whether a Frailty Deficit Index (FI) confers added risk stratification beyond more traditional methods. The associations of preoperative scores on FI, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) physical status, and Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) with complications after total joint arthroplasty (TJA) were compared. METHODS: Using a single institution cohort of adult patients ≥50 years undergoing primary or revision TJA from 2005 to 2016, we assessed how well the FI, CCI, and ASA scores predicted risk of mortality, infection, and reoperation. We performed 7 models for each outcome: FI, ASA, and CCI alone, FI + ASA, FI + CCI, ASA + CCI, and FI + ASA + CCI. Cox proportional hazards regression methods were used to calculate the concordance (C-) statistic, a measure of discrimination. RESULTS: Of 18,397 TJAs included, 98.9% were alive 1 year postoperatively. For mortality, all models had concordance between 0.76 and 0.79, with the FI + ASA + CCI model performing highest (C-statistic 0.79; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.76-0.82). Unadjusted, FI had the strongest concordance (C-statistic 0.77). In FI + ASA + CCI, each increase in 1 comorbidity (of 32 total comorbidities) in the FI was significantly associated with a 12% increase in the rate of mortality (hazard ratio [HR] 1.12, 95% CI 1.07-1.17, P < .001), 10% increase in infection (HR 1.10, 95% CI 1.06-1.14; P < .001), and 6% increase in reoperation (HR 1.06, 95% CI 1.05-1.08, P < .001). CONCLUSION: Identifying at-risk patients preoperatively is crucial and may result in adjustment of postoperative care. FI was independently associated with risk of adverse outcomes following TJA even after taking into account other predictive measures.

Concomitant Aspirin and Anticoagulation Is Associated With Increased Risk for Major Bleeding in Surgical Patients Requiring Postoperative Intensive Care.

OBJECTIVES: Critically ill surgical patients may receive concomitant aspirin and therapeutic anticoagulation postoperatively, yet the safety of this practice remains unknown. We evaluated the risk of major bleeding with concomitant therapy compared with anticoagulation alone. DESIGN: Observational cohort study. Inverse probability of treatment weighting was used to assess the association between concomitant therapy and a primary outcome of major bleeding. SETTING: Postoperative ICUs at an academic medical center. PATIENTS: Adults (≥ 18 yr old) receiving anticoagulation during postoperative ICU admission between 2007 and 2016. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Nine thousand five hundred eighteen anticoagulated patients were included, including 3,237 (34%) receiving aspirin. A total of 1,874 unique patients (19.7%) experienced a major bleeding event. In inverse probability of treatment weighting analyses, concomitant therapy was associated with increased odds for major bleeding (odds ratio, 1.20; 95% CI, 1.05-1.36; p = 0.006) compared with anticoagulation alone. An interaction test suggested a differential relationship between aspirin use and major bleeding based on aspirin use in the 7 days prior to anticoagulation, such that a strong association between aspirin and major bleeding was observed for recent initiators of aspirin (1.40; 1.13-1.72;p = 0.002) but not for those continuing prior aspirin use. Aspirin use prior to anticoagulation did not modify the relationship between concomitant therapy and new myocardial infarction or stroke (i.e., rates were not increased with aspirin discontinuation prior to anticoagulation). CONCLUSIONS: Concomitant aspirin and anticoagulation in critically ill surgical patients was associated with an increased rate of major bleeding. Future investigations are warranted to further define optimal management of antiplatelet therapy during anticoagulation in surgical patients.

Outcomes After Noncardiac Surgery for Patients with Pulmonary Hypertension: A Historical Cohort Study.

OBJECTIVE: Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a substantial preoperative risk factor. For this study, morbidity and mortality were examined after noncardiac surgery in patients with precapillary PH. DESIGN: A retrospective cohort study. SETTING: Quaternary medical center in Rochester, MN. PARTICIPANTS: Adults with PH undergoing noncardiac surgery. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: The PH and surgical databases were reviewed from 2010 to 2017. Patients were excluded if PH was attributable to left-sided heart disease or they had undergone cardiac or transplantation surgeries. To assess whether PH-specific diagnostic or cardiopulmonary testing parameters were predictive of perioperative complications, generalized estimating equations were used. Of 196 patients with PH, 53 (27%) experienced 1 or more complications, including 5 deaths (3%) within 30 days. After adjustment for age and PH type, there were more complications in those undergoing moderate- to high-risk versus low-risk procedures (odds ratio [OR] 4.17 [95% confidence interval {CI} 2.07-8.40]; p < 0.001). After adjustment for age, surgical risk, and PH type, the complication risk was greater for patients with worse functional status (OR 2.39 [95% CI 1.19-4.78]; p = 0.01 for classes III/IV v classes I/II) and elevated serum N-terminal fragment of the prohormone brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) (OR 2.28 [95% CI 1.05-4.96]; p = 0.04 for ≥300 v <300 pg/mL). After adjusting for age, surgical risk, and functional status, elevated NT-proBNP remained associated with increased risk (OR 2.23 [95% CI 1.05-4.76]; p = 0.04). CONCLUSION: PH patients undergoing noncardiac surgery have a high frequency of complications. Worse functional status, elevated serum NT-proBNP, and higher-risk surgery are predictive of worse outcome.

Speaker Gender Representation for Anesthesiology Grand Rounds at a Large Academic Medical Center.

BACKGROUND: Invited speakerships, such as speaking at grand rounds, are part of the pathway to promotion in academic medicine. This project sought to evaluate if the gender of invited grand rounds speakers at a major academic institution were distributed as expected based on the specialty workforce. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Archived lists of speakers for grand rounds for the Mayo Clinic Department of Anesthesiology were obtained from 2007 through 2018. The Cochran-Armitage test and logistic regression models were used to analyze the change in proportion of invited women speakers over time. One-sample proportion tests were conducted to compare the proportion of women speakers to the expected percentage of available women speakers based on gender data from national organizations. RESULTS: Of the 122 invited external speakers, 28 (23%) were women. Men invited 104/122 (85.2%) of all the speakers, of which 21 (20.2%) were women speakers. There was not significant evidence the proportion of women speakers increased over time (P = .29). Women speakers comprised a lower proportion of external invited speakers compared to the proportion of women in the academic anesthesia workforce; however, this association was not statistically significant (P = .07). The percentage of new residents that were female increased over this time period (P = .001). DISCUSSION: The percentage of women invited to be grand rounds speakers did not increase over the study period. Intentional measures should be instituted to increase the proportion of women grand rounds speakers.

Risk of major bleeding associated with aspirin use in non-surgical critically ill patients receiving therapeutic anticoagulation.

BACKGROUND: We aimed to evaluate the risk of major bleeding in non-surgical critically ill patients who received aspirin in conjunction with therapeutic anticoagulation (concomitant therapy) compared to those who received therapeutic anticoagulation alone. METHODS: This is a retrospective cohort study of critically ill patients initiated on therapeutic anticoagulation at a large academic medical center from 2007 to 2016. The exposure of interest was aspirin therapy during anticoagulation. The primary outcome was the incidence of major bleeding during hospitalization. Secondary outcomes included in-hospital mortality, hospital free days, and new myocardial infarction or stroke. RESULTS: 5507 (73.2%) patients received anticoagulation alone and 2014 (26.8%) received concomitant therapy; major bleeding occurred in 19.0% and 22.2%, respectively. There was no increased risk of major bleeding [OR 1.10 (95% CI: 0.93-1.30); p = .27] or mortality [OR 0.93 (95% CI: 0.77-1.11); p = .43] with concomitant therapy. Patients receiving concomitant therapy had fewer hospital-free days (mean decrease of 0.73 [1.36, 0.09]; p = .03) and were more likely to experience new myocardial infarction or stroke [OR 2.61 (95% CI: 1.72-3.98); p < .001]. CONCLUSIONS: In non-surgical critically ill patients receiving therapeutic anticoagulation, concomitant use of aspirin was not associated with an increased risk of bleeding or in-hospital mortality.