Incidence of respiratory complications in obese adult patients after cardiac surgeries

Abstract

Introduction Patients experience multiple alterations in respiratory function physiology and mechanics owing to intubation, mechanical ventilation, and cardiopulmonary bypass during cardiac surgery and during getting off cardiopulmonary bypass. Obesity is one of the growing epidemic problems, with increased cardiovascular disease risk and mortality in the USA. The WHO in 2010 assigned Egypt as one of African countries where obesity problem is prevalent, as 70% of its population are obese, the authors investigated the hypothesis that obese patients are more liable to respiratory complication after cardiac surgery. Patients and methods This cohort observational study was done on 50 patients admitted to the postoperative critical care unit, who were classified according to BMI into two groups. Group 1 included nonobese patients with BMI 18–25, and group 2 included obese patients with BMI more than 30. Results The authors found that there was a highly statistically significant difference between both groups regarding weight and BMI (P<0.001). There is a highly statistically significant difference between the two studied groups regarding pH, PCO2, total leukocyte count, and occurrence of chest infection (P<0.001). There were no significant statistical differences between both groups regarding PO2 parameter and occurrence of other pulmonary complications. Conclusion The authors conclude that there is a highly statistically significant strong positive association between BMI and chest infection, where the risk of chest infection increases with increase in BMI.

Keywords

• bmi
• cardiac surgeries
• chest infection
• obesity
• respiratory complications