Clinical utility of early postoperative cardiac multidetector computed tomography after coronary artery bypass grafting

We evaluated the clinical utility of early postoperative cardiac computed tomography (CT) for evaluating left ventricular (LV) function and predicting prognosis in patients who had undergone coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). Of the 205 patients who underwent CABG from March 2011 to December 2014, 136 underwent early postoperative cardiac CT (within 30 days after CABG) and were enrolled as the study population. The baseline and postoperative follow-up echocardiographic findings, major adverse cardiac events (MACE), and death were recorded for a follow-up period (mean, 5.9 ± 1.1 years). Functional cardiac CT parameters were compared to echocardiographic measurements. The associations between cardiac CT findings and functional recovery and prognosis were evaluated by logistic regression analyses. The LVEF measured via cardiac CT was significantly higher (56.2 ± 11.5% vs. 61.9 ± 12.9%; p = 0.0002) compared to those via early postoperative echocardiography, but the wall motion score index (WMSI) was not significantly different (1.23 ± 0.33 vs. 1.21 ± 0.28, p = 0.5041) between the two methods. During the follow-up period, 17 patients (12.5%) died and 40 (29.4%) developed MACE. Both the LVEF and WMSI measured with early postoperative echocardiography (p = 0.0202 and odds ratio [OR] = 5.0171, p = 0.0039, respectively), and cardiac CT (OR = 0.9625, p = 0.0091 and OR = 14.3605, p = 0.0001, respectively) predicted MACE OR = 0.9630, but only the WMSI, measured using cardiac CT, predicted all-cause death (OR = 10.6017, p = 0.0035). In CABG patients, LVEF and the WMSI measured with early postoperative cardiac CT were comparable with echocardiography and predicted the development of MACE and all-cause death.