The value of epicardial adipose tissue thickness for outcome prediction of patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting surgery

The significant association between epicardial adipose tissue and cardiovascular risk factors as well as outcome of ischemic heart diseases has been recently proposed. We determined the association between epicardial adipose tissue thickness and in‑hospital as well as 3‑month outcome after coronary artery bypass grafting surgery (CABG).

This cross‑sectional study was performed on 78 consecutive patients who underwent CABG in our heart center. Associations between epicardial adipose tissue thickness and in‑hospital as well as 3‑month outcome after CABG were measured by logistic regression and value of epicardial fat thickness evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis.

Patients in‑intensive care unit (ICU) suffered a variety of events, which many of them were insignificant, but 23 events (29.4%) of 78 were considered as important. The most frequent complication occurred in ICU was atrial fibrillation (9%). The frequency of 3‑month complications was 6.4%, including 3.8% rehospitalization, 1.3% reoperation, and 1.3% cardiac death. Ninety‑day mortality rate was 1.3%. Mean epicardial adipose tissue thickness was significantly higher in those with in‑ICU complications than those without complication (7.64 ± 2.80 mm vs. 6.16 ± 2.29 mm, P = 0.015); however, the difference for 90‑day complications was statistically nonsignificant. According to ROC curve analysis, measuring epicardial adipose tissue thickness could moderately predict in‑ICU complication (area under the curve = 0.65 8 , 95% confidence interval: 0.536–0.779, P = 0.017). The best cut‑off point of this adipose tissue thickness for predicting in‑ICU complication was 6.5 mm with sensitivity of 65.9% and specificity of 58.8%.

Epicardial adipose tissue thickness is a useful predicting parameter for in‑ICU complications after CABG.