Incidence and risk factors of cardiovascular mortality in patients with gastrointestinal adenocarcinoma.

BACKGROUND: Gastrointestinal (GI) cancers are common and fatal. Improved cancer-directed therapies, with thier substantial role in improving cancer-specific survival, may increase non-cancer mortality-including cardiovascular mortality-in these patients. AIM: To identify the risk factors of cardiovascular mortality in GI adenocarcinoma patients. METHODS: Data of GI adenocarcinoma patients were gathered from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database. We used Pearson's chi-square test to assess the relationships between categorical variables. We used the Kaplan-Meyer test in the univariate analysis and Cox regression test for the multivariate analysis. RESULTS: Among 556,350 included patients, 275,118 (49.6%) died due to adenocarcinoma, 64,079 (11.5%) died due to cardiovascular causes, and 83,161 (14.9%) died due to other causes. Higher rates of cardiovascular mortality were found in patients ≥ 50 years (HR, 8.476; 95% CI, 7.91-9.083), separated (HR, 1.27; 95% CI, 1.184-1.361) and widowed (HR, 1.867; 95% CI, 1.812-1.924), patients with gastric (HR, 1.18; 95% CI, 1.1-1.265) or colorectal AC (HR, 1.123; 95% CI, 1.053-1.198), and patients not undergone surgery (HR, 2.04; 95% CI, 1.958-2.126). Lower risk patients include females (HR, 0.729; 95% CI, 0.717-0.742), blacks (HR, 0.95; 95% CI, 0.924-0.978), married (HR, 0.77; 95% CI, 0.749-0.792), divorced (HR, 0.841; 95% CI, 0.807-0.877), patients with pancreatic AC (HR, 0.83; 95% CI, 0.757-0.91), and patients treated with chemotherapy (HR, 0.416; 95% CI, 0.406-0.427). CONCLUSIONS: Risk factors for cardiovascular mortality in GI adenocarcinoma include advanced age, males, whites, separated and widowed, gastric or colorectal adenocarcinoma, advanced grade or advanced stage of the disease, no chemotherapy, and no surgery. Married and divorced, and patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma have a lower risk.

Outcomes of cardiac surgery with left atrial appendage occlusion versus no Occlusion, direct oral Anticoagulants, and vitamin K Antagonists: A systematic review with Meta-analysis.

Surgical left atrial appendage occlusion (LAAO) is being used increasingly in the setting of atrial fibrillation but has been associated with procedural complications. This systematic review and meta-analysis compared the outcomes of surgical LAAO with those of no LAAO and the use of direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) and vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) using the PRISMA guidelines. A literature search was undertaken for relevant studies published between January 1, 2003, and August 15, 2021. Primary clinical outcomes were all-cause mortality, embolic events, and stroke. Secondary clinical outcomes included major adverse cardiac events (MACE), postoperative atrial fibrillation, postoperative complications, reoperation for bleeding, and major bleeding. There was a statistically significant 34% reduction in incidence of embolic events (odds ratio [OR] 0.66, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.57-0.77, p < 0.001) and a significant 42% reduction in risk of MACE (OR 0.58, 95% CI 0.38-0.88, p = 0.01) in patients who underwent LAAO.Surgical LAAO has the potential to reduce embolic events and MACE in patients undergoing cardiac surgery for atrial fibrillation. However, complete replacement of DOACs and warfarin therapy with surgical LAAO is unlikely despite its non-inferiority in terms of minimizing all-cause mortality, embolic events, MACE, major bleeding, and stroke in patients on oral anticoagulation therapies.