Risk evaluation in adult congenital heart surgery: analysis of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons Congenital Heart Surgery Database risk models on data from the European Congenital Heart Surgeons Association Congenital Database

Abstract

Abstract   OBJECTIVES We sought to evaluate the predictive power of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons–European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (STAT) mortality score and the adult congenital heart surgery (ACHS) mortality score for the adults undergoing congenital heart operations entered into the European Congenital Heart Surgeons Association (ECHSA) database. METHODS The data set comprised 17 662 major operations performed between 1997 and 2019, on patients 18 years of age or older, in European centres participating in the ECHSA database. Each operation was assigned a STAT mortality score and category and an ACHS mortality score. Operative mortality was based on the 30-day status and on the status at hospital discharge. The discriminatory power of the STAT and ACHS scores was assessed using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (c-index). RESULTS A total of 17 214 (97.46%) operations were assigned ACHS scores. The 3 most frequent primary procedures were closure of the atrial septal defect (19.0%), aortic valve replacement (8.8%) and non-valve-sparing aortic root replacement (6.1%). Operative mortality for ACHS-coded operations was 2.07%. The procedures with the highest mortality were atrial septal defect creation/enlargement (19.0%), lung transplantation (18.8%) and heart transplantation (18.2%). A total of 17 638 (99.86%) operations were assigned a STAT score and category. The operative mortality for STAT-coded operations was 2.27%. The c-index for mortality was 0.720 for the STAT mortality score and 0.701 for the ACHS score. CONCLUSIONS The ACHS mortality score and the STAT mortality score reached similar, moderate predictive power in adult patients undergoing congenital heart surgery in ECHSA database.