Medium-term outcomes of 78,808 patients after heart valve surgery in a middle-income country: a nationwide population-based study.

Background: Heart valve surgery outcomes are unknown in middle-income countries and thus cannot be used in health system decision making processes. This study estimated in-hospital mortality and medium and long-term survival.

Methods: This was a retrospective study of 78,806 patients who underwent heart valve surgery between 2001 and 2007 in Brazil.

Seven years of use of implantable cardioverter-defibrillator therapies: a nationwide population-based assessment of their effectiveness in real clinical settings.

Background: The efficacy of implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) and cardiac resynchronization therapy-defibrillator (CRT-D) therapy has already been established in clinical trials but their effectiveness in several clinical settings remains undetermined. This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of ICD and CRT-D therapies within the Brazilian National Health System (SUS).

Methods: All patients who underwent ICD or CRT-D implantation within the SUS from 2001 to 2007 were included in the study.

Accuracy of probabilistic record linkage in the assessment of high-complexity cardiology procedures.

Objective: To evaluate the viability of a probabilistic record linkage strategy to identify patients who underwent complex cardiology procedures among the total deceased population.

Methods: The processing cost was estimated based on 1,672 records of patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting that were compared with all death records in Brazil in 2005. The accuracy of the linkage strategy was based on the probabilistic linkage of 99 hospital admissions records of patients, with known vital status, who underwent cardiac surgery at a single cardiology institute, with the death records of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Southeastern Brazil, in 2005.