Role of Echocardiography in Cardiac Risk Assessment of Patients at Risk of Cardiac Disease before Non-Cardiac Surgical Intervention

Abstract

Objective: In our study we have tried to find the effectiveness and role of echocardiogram in cardiac risk assessment of patients who were at risk of cardiac disease before non-cardiac surgery.

Study Design: Prospective observational study

Place and Duration of Study: This study was conducted at the Kashmir Institute of Cardiology, Mirpur AJK, from Jan 2018 to Jan 2020.

Materials and Methods: Patients planned for non-cardiac surgery were referred to our department for cardiac evaluation, based on presence of 1 or more cardiac risk factors we performed their echocardiogram to diagnose and risk stratify their cardiac risk.

Results: 135 patients were observed in our setup.

Conclusion: In our study we used echocardiogram as a diagnostic test in patients who were planned for non-cardiac surgery. After risk assessment we did echocardiogram in such patients and found out that echocardiography does changes the decision about surgery in more than 40% of the patients due to presence of previously undiagnosed cardiac disease which includes wall motion abnormalities and valvar anomalies. So our recommendation is that echocardiography should be a routine test in patients who have more than 1 cardiac risk factors.