Investigating the Safety of Patients with Preoperative Tachycardia and Hypertension Undergoing Sleeve Gastrectomy

Background : Studies have suggested that elevated postoperative heart rate was associated with bleeding following bariatric surgery. Therefore, we questioned whether patients with preoperative elevated heart rate are more prone to postoperative bleeding following sleeve gastrectomy (SG) than those with normal heart rate. Methods : Patients who underwent laparoscopic SG between January 2020 and January 2022 at our hospital were included. The primary parameters for this analysis were the patients’ age, gender, weight, body mass index (BMI), preoperative and postoperative day-1 heart rate and blood pressure, drainage placement and volume, incidence of postoperative complications. Results : Two hundred and fifty-two SG patients were included in this study (elevated heart rate, EHR n=54 vs. normal heart rate, NHR n=198). Postoperatively, the EHR group had significantly higher heart rate, incidence of drainage placement, and postoperative length of stay than the NHR groups(p<0.05). We further analyzed the hypertensive patients (HT) with and without preoperative elevated heart rate (HT with EHR, n=30 vs. HT without EHR, n=60). Postoperatively, the HT with EHR group had significantly higher heart rate and incidence of drainage placement than the HT without EHR group (p<0.05). No incidence of postoperative bleeding was observed in all the groups. Conclusion : Our study found that patients with preoperative elevated heart rate have increased risk for the need of drainage placement intraoperatively, however, did not result in the increased incidence for postoperative complications. Further studies will be needed to understand better the safety of performing bariatric surgery in patients with elevated heart rate.