Gareth Kitchen from the University of Manchester and colleagues conducted an analysis of prospective data and determined that mortality is greater during late morning when cardiovascular surgery is performed compared to other times of the day. The study employed figures from four British medical and demographic registries spanning from April 2009 to March 2016 (totaling over 24 thousand cardiac surgery patients). Deaths from cardiovascular ailments and procedures conducted between 7:00 and 19:59 were considered primarily, as the remaining data are not representative of scheduled cardiac surgical procedures in the UK. The findings are published in the journal Anaesthesia.
It turned out that the highest average risk of death—3.7 percent—is observed during operations performed from 10:00 to 11:59, versus 3.2 percent from 7:00 to 9:59, 3.1 percent from 14:00 to 19:59, and 2.8 percent from 12:00 to 13:59. Adjustment analysis for patient and operative factors also indicated elevated cardiovascular mortality following procedures carried out late in the morning (hazard ratio compared to early morning of 1.18). No significant variations were found in the risk of readmission due to myocardial infarction or acute heart failure, postoperative hospital stay length, or all-cause mortality. Previously, Canadian researchers had found poorer outcomes for operations conducted before weekends.
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