Charlottesville-based University of Virginia researchers identified an trend in heart surgery data: Poor kidney function prior to heart surgery is associated with longer hospital stays, higher costs and worsened outcomes for patients. Their findings were published online Tuesday in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery.
A statewide database of more than 46,500 records of patients who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting surgery reflected that preoperative kidney function could be used to predict hospital resource utilization and increased costs, according to the paper. Worsening kidney function was also associated with increased length of hospital stays.
"While the relationship between poor kidney function and worse outcomes after heart surgery has been well established, the ability to predict the impact of preoperative renal insufficiency on hospital costs and healthcare resource utilization was unknown," Damien LaPar, MD, who led the study, said in a statement. "Our study was designed to evaluate the relationship between preoperative kidney function, hospital resource utilization and cost of hospitalization after heart surgery."
The authors concluded that testing preoperative kidney function using creatinine clearance test to determine how well they are filtering waste could help give patients and clinicians a better understanding of potential post-operative complications.