Alessandra Sala

and 17 more

Background: This study aims at better defining the profile of patients with a complicated versus non-complicated postoperative course following isolated tricuspid valve (TV) surgery to identify predictors of a favourable/unfavourable hospital outcome. Methods: All patients treated with isolated tricuspid surgery from March 1997-January 2020 at our institution were retrospectively reviewed. Considering the complexity of most of these patients, a regular postoperative course was arbitrarily defined as a length-of-stay in intensive care unit <4 days and/or postoperative length-of-stay <10days. Patients were therefore divided accordingly in two groups. Results: 172 patients were considered, among whom 97 (56.3%) had a regular (REG) and 75 (43.6%) a non-regular (NEG) postoperative course. The latter had worse baseline clinical and echocardiographic characteristics, with higher rate of renal insufficiency, previous heart failure hospitalizations, cardiac operations, and right ventricular dysfunction. NEG patients more frequently needed tricuspid replacement and experienced a greater number of complications (p<0.001) and higher in-hospital mortality (13% vs 0%, p<0.001). The majority of these complications were related to more advanced stage of the tricuspid disease. Among most important predictors of a negative outcome univariate analysis identified chronic kidney disease, ascites, previous right heart failure hospitalizations, right ventricular dysfunction, previous cardiac surgeries, TV replacement and higher MELD scores. At multivariate analysis, liver enzymes and diuretics’ dose were predictors of complicated postoperative course. Conclusions: In isolated TV surgery a complicated postoperative course is observed in patients with more advanced right heart failure and organ damage. Earlier surgical referral is associated to excellent outcomes and should be recommended.