Quality of life 10 years after cardiac surgery in adults: a long-term follow-up study

Abstract

Abstract Background Quality of life (QoL) is a multifactorial concept that assesses physical and mental health. We prospectively studied the quality of life of patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery using the Short-Form 36-item questionnaire (SF-36) up to 10 years after surgery. Methods Between January 2000 and December 2002, all patients undergoing elective isolated CABG in the cardiac & thoracic surgery department of a large university hospital in Eastern France underwent initial QoL evaluation with the SF-36. The same questionnaire was mailed to every patient annually (± 2 weeks around the date of surgery) up to 10 years after their operation. We recorded socio-demographic and clinical variables at inclusion. Predictors of impaired QoL at 10 years were identified by logistic regression. Results A total of 272 patients (213 men, 59 women) were enrolled; mean age at inclusion was 65 ± 10 years. At 10 years post-surgery, 81 patients had died (29.7%). The physical component summary (PCS) score was significantly higher at 5 years after surgery than at baseline (p < 0.01), and significantly lower at 10 years than at 5 years (p < 0.01), although there remained a significant difference between 10-year PCS and baseline score (p = 0.004). The mental component summary (MCS) score was significantly higher at 5 years than at the time of surgery (p < 0.001), and remained significantly higher compared to baseline at 10 years after surgery (p = 0.010). By multivariate analysis, diabetes and dypsnea were both associated with worse PCS at 10 years, while lower age was associated with better 10-year PCS. Only diabetes was associated with impaired MCS at 10 years. Conclusions Cardiac surgery appears to durably and positively affect both physical and mental components of quality of life.

Keywords

• Quality of life
• Cardiac surgery
• Follow up
• Coronary artery bypass graft