Objective
The Transfusion Risk and Clinical Knowledge (TRACK) score is a simple tool to predict
the chance of undergoing blood transfusion in cardiac surgery. The authors evaluated
the relationship between the TRACK score and clinical outcomes of cardiac surgery
in patients who refused blood transfusion.
Design
An observational study.
Setting
A single hospital.
Participants
Seventy-six adult Jehovah’s Witnesses refusing blood transfusion who underwent cardiac
surgeries.
Interventions
Patients were divided into 2 groups according to their TRACK score: low-risk group
(n = 57, TRACK score of less than 13) and high-risk group (n = 19, TRACK score of
13 or more). Perioperative and long-term clinical outcomes were compared between the
2 groups.
Measurements and Main Results
The operative mortality was 0% in the low-risk group, and 21.1% (n = 4) in the high-risk
group (p = 0.003). The incidence of major postoperative complications was higher in
the high-risk group (57.9%) than in the low-risk group (17.5%) (p = 0.002). The high-risk
group had more postoperative bleeding-related complications (21.1%) than did the low-risk
group (1.8%) (p = 0.013). There were no significant differences of predictive performance
in mortality and morbidity between the TRACK score and EuroSCORE II.
Conclusion
In cardiac surgery patients refusing transfusions, the TRACK score predicted postoperative
morbidity and mortality of cardiac surgery.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 12, 2016
Footnotes
This study was presented at the International Society for Minimally Invasive Cardiothoracic Surgery Annual Meeting during June 2015 in Berlin, Germany.
Identification
Copyright
© 2016 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
