Introduction
Acyanotic congenital heart disease (ACHD) patients with pulmonary
hypertension (PH) are prone to postoperative complications, and
characterization of the risk profile continues to fail in identifying
inflammatory predilection. Our objective is to investigate the role of
platelet-leukocyte indices (neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio [NLR],
platelet-lymphocyte ratio [PLR], and systemic immune-inflammation index
[SII] [neutrophil × platelet/lymphocyte]) in predicting poor outcomes
following cardiac surgery in ACHD cohort with preoperative PH.
Methods
This single-center, retrospective risk-predictive study included ACHD
patients undergoing surgical correction at our tertiary cardiac center
between January 2015 and December 2019. Standard institutional perioperative
management protocol was followed, and poor postoperative outcome was defined
as ≥ 1 of: low cardiac output syndrome, new-onset renal failure,
prolonged mechanical ventilation (MV > 24 hours), stroke, sepsis, and/or
death.
Results
One hundred eighty patients out of 1,040 (17.3%) presented poor outcome. On
univariate analysis, preoperative factors including right ventricular
systolic pressure (RVSP) (PH-severity marker), congestive heart failure,
albumin, NLR, PLR, SII, and aortic cross-clamping (ACC) and cardiopulmonary
bypass (CPB) times predicted poor outcome. However, on multivariate
analysis, RVSP, NLR, SII, and ACC and CPB times emerged as independent
predictors. An NLR, SII prognostic cutoff of 3.33 and 860.6×103/mm3
was derived (sensitivity: 77.8%, 78.9%; specificity: 91.7%, 82.2%; area
under the curve: 0.871, 0.833). NLR and SII values significantly correlated
with postoperative MV duration, mean vasoactive-inotropic scores, and length
of intensive care unit and hospital stay (
P
<0.001).
Conclusion
Novel parsimonious, reproducible plateletleukocyte indices present the
potential of stratifying the risk in congenital cardiac surgical patients
with pre-existing PH.