Impact of obesity on early outcomes after cardiac surgery: experience in a Saudi Arabian center.

Purpose: The prevalence of obesity is a public health concern in most countries, including Saudi Arabia. Obesity has been considered a major risk factor for adverse outcomes after cardiac surgery.

Materials And Methods: A single-center retrospective review (2001-2005) of adverse outcome after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) and valve surgery (total=462) categorized by body mass index (BMI) was performed. The patients with BMI>or=30 were defined as the obese group and patients whose BMI<30 were labeled as the nonobese group.

Results: Overall, 315 (68.2%) were classified as nonobese, and 147 (31.8%) were obese. Obese patients were older and more likely to have diabetes and hypertension. There were no significant differences between the two groups with regard to other comorbidity and risk factors. There was no association between the two groups and the outcomes of operative mortality and morbidities.

Conclusion: This study demonstrated that obesity does not increase the risk of death and most complications after cardiac surgery, aside from the unexplained increased risk of reoperation during the same admission.