THURSDAY, Nov. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Two months after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), having a heart rate greater than 90 beats per minute is a poor prognostic factor, according to research published in the Oct. 1 issue of the American Journal of Cardiology.
Michael Frank, M.D., of Dupuytren University Hospital in Limoges, France, and colleagues analyzed data from a prospective cohort study of 794 patients who underwent non-urgent CABG from 1998 to 2002. The purpose of the study was to assess the prognostic significance of heart rate after CABG. The primary end point was all-cause mortality, and the secondary outcome was occurrence of death, nonfatal acute coronary syndromes, stroke or transient ischemic attack, secondary coronary revascularization, or vascular surgery.
The researchers found that after adjustment for confounders, including the use of β-blockers, heart rate greater than 90 beats per minute at two months post-CABG was significantly associated with the secondary outcome (hazard ratio, 2.26), but only borderline significantly associated with all-cause mortality (hazard ratio, 3.57; P = 0.07), due to the limited sample population size.
"Further studies with optimal population sample sizes are necessary to implement these findings and to eventually confirm postoperative heart rate [at] rest as a prognostic marker after CABG," the authors write.
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