The Role of Myocardial Perfusion Scanning, Heart Rate Variability and D-dimers in Predicting the Risk of Perioperative Cardiac Complications After Peripheral Vascular Surgery

Objectives: To study the value of a number of proposed prognostic factors in prediction of the risk of perioperative cardiac events after vascular surgery.

Design And Methods: Two hundred and ninety-seven patients undergoing peripheral vascular surgery were prospectively studied. Patients underwent preoperative 24 h ambulatory electrocardiography, measurement of haemostatic variables, myocardial assessment of perfusion by dipyridamole-thallium scintigraphy and radionuclide ventriculography. The primary endpoint was cardiac death or nonfatal myocardial infarction within 30 days of surgery. A combined endpoint included the primary endpoint plus occurrence of cardiac failure, unstable angina or serious arrhythmias.

Results: The primary endpoint occurred in 21 (7%), and the combined endpoint in 41 (14%) of patients. On multivariate analysis, increased age, previous myocardial infarction, aortic surgery, impaired heart rate variability and a positive thallium scan were independent predictors of primary end-points. Preoperative atrial fibrillation and increased fibrin D-dimer were additional predictors of the combined endpoint. Construction of receiver-operator characteristic curves to examine the incremental value of predictive models showed that sensitivity and specificity of clinical data alone for primary endpoints was 71% and 72% respectively, while for the full model (incorporating heart rate variability and thallium data) this rose to 84% and 80% (p=0.0001).

Conclusions: Preliminary screening using clinical data has limited value in risk assessment prior to vascular surgery but preoperative heart rate variability, D-dimers and thallium scanning provide modest incremental predictive value.