Simultaneous operation for cardiac disease and gastrointestinal malignancy

AIM: To investigate the safety of performing simulta-neous cardiac surgery and a resection of a gastrointes-tinal malignancy. METHODS: Among 3664 elective cardiac operations performed in adults at Kagoshima University Hospi-tal from January 1991 to October 2009, this study reviewed the clinical records of the patients who un-derwent concomitant cardiac surgery and a gastroin-testinal resection. Such simultaneous surgeries were performed in 15 patients between January 1991 and October 2009. The cardiac diseases included 8 cases of coronary artery disease and 7 cases with valvular heart disease. Gastrointestinal malignancies included 11 gas-tric and 4 colon cancers. Immediate postoperative andlong-term outcomes were evaluated. RESULTS: Postoperative complications occurred in 5 patients(33.3%), including strokes(n = 1), respiratory failure requiring re-intubation(n = 1), hemorrhage(n = 2), hyperbilirubinemia(n = 1) and aspiration pneu-monia(n = 1). There was 1 hospital death caused by the development of adult respiratory distress syndrome after postoperative surgical bleeding followed aortic valve replacement plus gastrectomy. There was no car-diovascular event in the patients during the follow-up period. The cumulative survival rate for all patients was 69.2% at 5 years. CONCLUSION: Simultaneous procedures are accept-able for the patients who require surgery for both car-diac diseases and gastrointestinal malignancy. In par-ticular, the combination of a standard cardiac operation, such as coronary artery bypass grafting or an isolated valve replacement and simple gastrointestinal resection, such as gastrectomy or colectomy can therefore be safely performed.