Intra-hospital re-exploration
The overall rate of intra-hospital re-exploration, for all causes - pericardial effusion, delayed sternal closure, graft failure or cardiac arrest - was 6.5% (n=25).
In this cohort, the incidence of pericardial effusion, was 72%(n=18). Ten patients(55%) returned in theatre within the first 72 hours from surgery. In these cases, no significant relationships were observed between the incidence of re-exploration and pre-operative use of anticoagulants (p =.150; Odd Ratio: 0.52(0.2-1.2); NOACs: n=2, 1.9%, ; Warfarin: n=1, 0.9%).
Nine patients required re-exploration after 72 hours (mean post-operative day of 11.8±4.3). Warfarin was already started for seven patients with a median value of INR of 1.8 (IQR: 1.2-2.6). Higher the INR, bigger was the effusion drained (median:800mls, IQR: 400-1250), but this was not statistically significant (r =0.37, R2=0.13 p =0.368, n=9).
Major aortic surgery was statistically related to a higher incidence of re-exploration when compared with the other surgical procedures (p =.011; Odd Ratio: 3.4(1.3-8.4), (Table 2).