Results
In the present study, a total of 503 patients had undergone cardiovascular surgery between January 21, 2020 and April 18, 2020. Coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) was the most type of surgery (63.4%) followed by valve surgery (12.1%) in these patients. Among whom, 64 individuals (12.7%) were found to be positive COVID-19 according to the findings of RT-PCR and chest CT scan. As shown in Figure 1, among positive COVID-19 individuals, 6 patients (9.4%) expired at the hospital while in the negative COVID-19 group, 10 (2.3%) in-hospital mortalities were documented.
Table 1 demonstrates baseline demographic characteristics and survival status of patients undergoing cardiovascular surgery according to COVID-19 findings. As shown, most of the patients in the two groups were male, and CABG was the most type of surgery in these groups. Valve+other surgery (14.1%) was the second most type of surgery in positive COVID-19 group while in negative COVID-19 group, valve surgery (13.5%) was the second most type of surgery in negative COVID-19 patients. As mentioned before, the rate of in-hospital mortality was higher in positive COVID-19 groups as compared to negative COVID-19 group (9.4% versus 2.3%).
Table 2 presents the demographic, clinical, surgical and laboratory data of patients with positive COVID-19 undergoing cardiovascular surgery based on survival status. Among 64 cardiovascular surgery patients with positive COVID-19 result, 58 patients (90.6%) survived and 6 individuals (9.4%) expired. Men accounted the most of the patients in both survived and expired groups. Among expired patients, one underwent valve surgery and the other 5 patients underwent CABG. In positive COVID-19 patients who survived, CABG and valve+other surgeries were the most type of operations. Fever, chest pain and dry cough was the three most symptoms in both groups. Leukocytosis and lymphopenia were both present in the two survived and expired groups. However, the median (25th-75th IQR) of white blood cell (WBC) count was higher in patients who expired (13.66 ×103/µL [10.90-22.18] versus 11.11×103/µL [10.00-14.00]) while the percentage of lymphocyte was lower in these individuals (13.2% [9.11-15.15] versus 17.0% [13.66-22.20]). C-reactive protein (CRP) was high in two groups although the findings were higher in the expired group (15.3 mg/L [3.03-29.96] versus 5.6 mg/L [3.72-9.00]). All of the patients showed chest CT scan features of compatible with COVID-19.