Use of EuroSCORE as a predictor of morbidity after cardiac surgery

To evaluate the use of the EuroSCORE as a predictor of postoperative morbidity after cardiac surgery. We retrospectively analyzed the charts of 900 patients operated on and admitted to the intensive care unit postoperatively at the Royal Portuguese Hospital of Recife. We included all patients with complete medical records, excluding those who died during surgery, underwent transplantation or correction of congenital heart disease. We evaluated the development of respiratory infection, cerebrovascular accident, and dialysis-dependent renal failure, and the EuroSCORE was compared in terms of the three complications using the Mann-Whitney test. The calibration model for predicting the morbidities being studied was evaluated using the test set of Homer-Lemeshow goodness. The accuracy of the model was assessed using the area under the ROC curve (AUROC). The model showed good calibration in predicting respiratory infection, acute renal failure and stroke (P=0.285, P=0.789, P=0.45, respectively), with good accuracy for respiratory infection (AUROC=0.710 and P