What evidence is there for intraoperative predictors of perioperative cardiac outcomes? A systematic review.

This article describes the results of a meta-analysis designed to assess intraoperative predictors of perioperative cardiac outcomes in patient who undergo non-cardiac surgery. The authors included 14 studies and observed that intraoperative blood transfusion, vascular surgery and urgent surgeries were independently associated with perioperative major cardiac events.
The results of this meta-analysis should be interpreted with caution, as several biases could not be excluded from the analysis. The authors included only 14 studies while many other studies have probably assessed the relationship between perioperative factors and perioperative major cardiac events. As reported in the results of the meta-analysis (figures 2 & 3), a huge heterogeneity (I2) was observed between the studies included for analysis. This makes it difficult to interpret the results.

– David Faraoni