Sonographic muscle mass assessment in patients after cardiac surgery
Stavros Dimopoulos, Vasiliki Raidou, Dimitrios Elaiopoulos, Foteini Chatzivasiloglou, D Markantonaki, Efterpi Lyberopoulou, Ioannis Vasileiadis, Katerina Marathias, Serafeim Nanas, Andreas Karabinis
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Patients undergoing cardiac surgery particularly those with comorbidities and frailty, experience frequently higher rates of post-operative morbidity, mortality and prolonged hospital length of stay. Muscle mass wasting seems to play important role in prolonged mechanical ventilation (MV) and consequently in intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital stay. AIM: To investigate the clinical value of skeletal muscle mass assessed by ultrasound early after cardiac surgery in terms of duration of MV and ICU length of stay. METHODS: In this observational study, we enrolled consecutively all patients, following their admission in the Cardiac Surgery ICU within 24 h of cardiac surgery. Bedside ultrasound scans, for the assessment of quadriceps muscle thickness, were performed at baseline and every 48 h for seven days or until ICU discharge. Muscle strength was also evaluated in parallel, using the Medical Research Council (MRC) scale. RESULTS: = 0.025). CONCLUSION: Skeletal quadriceps muscle thickness assessed by ultrasound shows a trend to a decrease in patients after cardiac surgery post-ICU admission and is associated with prolonged duration of MV and ICU length of stay.