Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) hurts the chances of long-term survival after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) in black patients more than in white patients, an observational study showed.
Although white PAD patients were a significant 50 percent more likely to die than those without PAD over a median of eight years of post-CABG follow-up, the risk was 2.1 times higher for black PAD patients (95 percent CI 1.8-2.5), Jimmy T. Efird, PhD, of East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C., and colleagues found.
“This finding provides useful outcome information for surgeons and their patients and suggests a need for closer follow-up of black PAD patients,” they wrote in the July issue of the Annals of Thoracic Surgery, noting that PAD is more common among blacks.
“Furthermore, our results highlight that the quality and quantity of healthcare needs to be extended to all groups, including those from rural and priority populations, to improve overall health and maximize long-term survival after CABG.”
The retrospective study included all 13,053 patients who got a first-time elective CABG at a single tertiary referral center in rural North Carolina from 1992 through 2011.
