Health-Related Outcomes
Patients in the FEES cohort did not significantly differ based on Cardiac ICU (CICU) LOS (10.9 ± 7.3 vs 12.1 ± 5.1 days, P = 0.72), postoperative LOS (25.3 ± 13.2 vs 30.7 ± 15.4 days,P = 0.46), and total LOS (29.1 ± 12.9 vs 46.6 ± 29.4 days,P = 0.10) (Table 3). Patients that underwent FEES trended towards a lower incidence of postoperative pneumonia (16.7% vs 50.0%,P = 0.32) and postoperative sepsis (0% vs 33.3%,P = 0.25). One patient in each cohort was readmitted within 30 days; however, 30-day and 1-year mortality were 0% and 5.6%, respectively, for the entire cohort. Mortality at 2 and 3 years, and Kaplan-Meier survivorship did not differ between groups (Figure 1).