[Hospital mortality at a cardiosurgical unit in Torino: international comparisons and time trend].

Objective: To compare hospital mortality in a cardiac surgery unit with external data and to assess changes in time (patients undergoing surgery in two different periods).

Materials And Methods: Data on risk factors for hospital mortality were collected from clinical records (retrospectively for the first period and prospectively for the second) for all patients undergoing open heart surgery at the Heart Surgery Unit of the University of Turin (Italy) during 1991 and 1995 (n = 1794) and 1999 (n = 892). Comparisons of in-hospital mortality, expressed as Standardized Mortality Ratios (SMR), were adjusted for risk factors defined according to EuroSCORE (European System for Cardiac Operative Risk Evaluation).