[Cardiac morbidity and fatalities in patients with vascular surgery. Identification of risk groups].

Incidence and type of cardiac complications in 701 patients undergoing arterial vascular surgery were prospectively investigated to identify high-risk groups. Cardiac morbidity was 10.1%. Cardiac complications were responsible for 28 deaths (57%). Using logistic regression analysis, age (cardiac morbidity greater than 7017.3%), impaired renal function (19.8%), and congestive heart failure (17.3%) were the main independent risk factors. In addition, 4 risk factors (arrhythmia, coronary artery disease, anemia, emergency surgery) showed significant individual association with cardiac complications. Cardiac morbidity increased to 27.8% in patients with more than 2 of these 7 risk factors. A further association could be demonstrated between the degree of peripheral vascular disease and cardiac morbidity, but not with the extent of the operation. Based on our results a distinction between three groups of different cardiac risk can be made. A clinical algorithm for further cardiac assessment in high-risk patients is presented.