High morbidity in myocardial infarction and heart failure patients after gastric cancer surgery

AIM: To evaluate to morbidity and mortality differences between 4 underlying heart diseases, myocardial infarction (MI), angina pectoris (Angina), heart failure (HF), and atrial fibrillation (AF), after radical surgery for gastric cancer. METHODS: We retrospectively collected data from 221 patients of a total of 15167 patients who underwent radical gastrectomy and were preoperatively diagnosed with a history of Angina, MI, HF, or AF in 8 hospitals. RESULTS: We find that the total morbidity rate is significantly higher in the MI group (44%) than the Angina (15.7%), AF (18.8%), and HF (23.1%) groups (p < 0.01). Moreover, we note that the risk for postoperative cardiac problems is higher in patients with a history of HF (23.1%) than patients with a history of Angina (2.2%), AF (4.3%), or MI (6%; p = 0.01). The HF and MI groups each have 1 case of cardiogenic mortality. CONCLUSION: We conclude that MI patients have a higher risk of morbidity, and HF patients have a higher risk of postoperative cardiac problems than Angina or AF.