Study Design
All open cardiac surgery patients at a single academic institution in
2018 were retrospectively reviewed. Those who did not receive an
intraoperative TEG or had incomplete TEG data were excluded. TEG was
used to group patients according to fibrinolysis phenotypes. Otherwise,
there were no exclusions based on age, medical co-morbidities, or other
demographic information. The retrospective study was approved by the
institutional review board with waiver of consent.
Demographic, clinical, and outcomes data were compared between groups.
Demographic data included age, sex, race, ethnicity, insurance status,
and medical comorbidities. Clinical variables included specific cardiac
operation, total operative time, any intra-operative or post-operative
surgical complications, and all peri-operative and post-operative
medications. Outcomes of interest included estimated blood loss (EBL),
post-operative length of stay (LOS), chest tube days, total chest tube
output, number of packed red blood cells (pRBCs) transfused, all cause
morbidity, and mortality (defined as disability and/or death from,
cardiac arrest, cerebrovascular accident, congestive heart failure,
hemothorax, multiorgan failure myocardial infarction, pleural effusion,
respiratory failure, sepsis, thromboembolism, valve dysfunction, and/or
wound dehiscence/abscess).