A Predictive Index for Length of Stay in the Intensive Care Unit Following Cardiac Surgery

Comment: This carefully conducted study in a single institution demonstrates that longer lengths of ICU stay after cardiac surgery can be predicted with reasonable accuracy using simple preoperative information. Most of the factors that increase the length of ICU stay were relatively predictable. Old age, severe reduction in left ventricular function, urgent or emergency surgery, and cardiac surgery other dian simple coronary artery bypass graft were associated with longer lengths of stay. It was interesting that some risk factors did not improve the predictability of the model, e.g., reoperation, New York Heart Association class, and comorbidity. This relatively simple index may prove to be useful if validated on other patient populations. However, there were significant numbers of outliers in most risk categories. Therefore, it may have a low specificity for use in individual patients.