Background: Frailty syndrome and cardiovascular diseases are closely related because of the shared physiological pathway of chronic, low-intensity inflammation. Frailty syndrome may be an adverse factor in the prognosis of patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD).
Objectives: To assess the influence of frailty syndrome on patient prognosis after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG).
Material and methods: The study was conducted at the Clinic of Cardiac Surgery in Katowice and involved 180 patients (56 women, 31.11%) over 60 years of age who qualified for CABG surgery. The Tilburg Frailty Indicator (TFI) was used to assess frailty syndrome and the The World Health Organization Quality of Life Brief Version (WHOQOL-BREF) questionnaire was used to assess quality of life. Statistical analysis was performed using R software.
Results: Frailty syndrome was diagnosed in 42 patients (23.3%), including 24 men and 18 women. More than 1/3 of patients had complications during or after surgery, including 34.6% of patients without frailty syndrome and 28.6% of patients with frailty features. All of the complications occurred in 57 (31.6%) patients. Early complications accounted for 89.5% of all events - 93.3% of which occurred in patients without frailty syndrome and 75% in patients with frailty features (p = 0.289).
Conclusions: More than 1/3 of patients experienced complications during or after the CABG procedure. Early postoperative complications accounted for almost all of the adverse events in patients with frailty. However, frailty syndrome was a poor predictor of rehospitalization.
Keywords: coronary artery bypass grafting; frailty syndrome; quality of life.