Background: Few studies describe an association of perioperative blood pressure stability with postoperative outcome. We tested the hypothesis that systolic blood pressure (SBP) variability in patients undergoing cardiac surgery is associated with 30-day mortality.
Methods: Perioperative blood pressure variability was evaluated in the 1512 patients who were randomized and had perioperative hypertension in the ECLIPSE trials. Blood pressure variability was assessed as the product of magnitude × duration of SBP excursions outside defined SBP ranges (area under the curve). SBP ranges were analyzed from 65 to 135 mm Hg intraoperatively and 75 to 145 mm Hg pre- or postoperatively, up to 105 to 135 mm Hg intraoperatively and 115 to 145 mm Hg pre- or postoperatively, with the narrower ranges defined by progressively increasing the lower SBP limit by 10 mm Hg increments. Multiple logistic regression was used to assess the association of blood pressure variability with 30-day mortality obtained from the primary ECLIPSE trial results.
Results: Increased SBP variability outside a range of 75 to 135 mm Hg intraoperatively and 85 to 145 mm Hg pre- and postoperatively is significantly associated with 30-day mortality. The odds ratio was 1.16 (95% confidence interval, 1.04-1.30) for 30-day mortality risk per incremental SBP excursion of 60 mm Hg × min/h. The predicted probability of 30-day mortality increased for low-risk patients from 0.2% to 0.5%, and for high-risk patients from 42.4% to 60.7% if the area under the curve increased from 0 to 300 mm Hg × min/h.
Conclusions: Perioperative blood pressure variability is associated with 30-day mortality in cardiac surgical patients, proportionate to the extent of SBP excursions outside the range of 75 to 135 mm Hg intraoperatively and 85 to 145 mm Hg pre- and postoperatively. Predicted mortality was greater for high-risk patients than for low-risk patients.