Loading...
Echocardiography (echo) is sometimes performed before patients undergo noncardiac surgery, but do echo results predict survival or length of hospital stay? In this analysis of large Canadian administrative databases, investigators found that approximately 15% of patients who underwent intermediate-to-high–risk procedures such as aortic aneurysm repair, hip or knee replacement, or nephrectomy underwent rest echo within 6 months before their procedures.
The researchers used propensity matching, a statistical technique designed to facilitate comparison between only those echo recipients and nonrecipients whose baseline clinical and demographic characteristics were otherwise similar. Echo was associated with higher mortality at 30 days (relative…