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

BackgroundQuality 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 10years after surgery.MethodsBetween 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 ( 2weeks around the date of surgery) up to 10years after their operation. We recorded socio-demographic and clinical variables at inclusion. Predictors of impaired QoL at 10years were identified by logistic regression.ResultsA total of 272 patients (213 men, 59 women) were enrolled; mean age at inclusion was 65 +/- 10years. At 10years post-surgery, 81 patients had died (29.7%). The physical component summary (PCS) score was significantly higher at 5years after surgery than at baseline (p<0.01), and significantly lower at 10years than at 5years (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 5years than at the time of surgery (p<0.001), and remained significantly higher compared to baseline at 10years after surgery (p=0.010). By multivariate analysis, diabetes and dypsnea were both associated with worse PCS at 10years, while lower age was associated with better 10-year PCS. Only diabetes was associated with impaired MCS at 10years.Conclusions Cardiac surgery appears to durably and positively affect both physical and mental components of quality of life.