Cirrhosis of the Liver and Heart Surgery

A recent study has found that liver cirrhosis has a relationship to the success of any heart surgery a patient may undergo.

Milder cases of cirrhosis will have less of an impact on heart surgery outcomes, but anyone with advanced cirrhosis may need to consider alternative to the usual courses of heart disease treatment. Alternative approaches to heart surgery, such as medically managing the patient's heart disease, might be necessary until it is possible to perform surgery at the same time as a liver transplant.

Cirrhosis is a degenerative liver disease that causes a scarring of the tissues, prevents blood flow through the organ and ultimately impairs liver function. It is often brought on by heavy alcohol use, or infection with hepatitis B or hepatitis C.

The relationship between the severity of cirrhosis and the success of abdominal surgeries has been known for some time, only a few studies have previously been done on outcomes for heart surgery.

The research team was led by Dr. Farzan Filsoufi of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.

Based on their research, the team concluded heart surgery can be performed safely and with a good likelihood for survival for patients with a relatively mild degree of cirrhosis. But complications arose as the degree of severity grew worse. In severe, or "Class C" cases of cirrhosis, complications after the surgery could be as high as one hundred percent.

They therefore recommended that heart surgery patients with cirrhosis be selected carefully to help improve the chance of successful outcomes.

The results of the study have been published in the July 2007 issue of Liver Transplantation.  

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