Trends and Outcomes of Cardiovascular Surgery in Patients With Opioid Use Disorders

Importance Persistent opioid use is currently a major health care crisis. There is a lack of knowledge regarding its prevalence and effect among patients undergoing cardiac surgery. Objective To characterize the national population of cardiac surgery patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) and compare outcomes with the cardiac surgery population without OUD. Design, Setting, and Participants In this retrospective population-based cohort study, more than 5.7 million adult patients who underwent cardiac surgery (ie, coronary artery bypass graft, valve surgery, or aortic surgery) in the United States were included. Pregnant patients were excluded. Propensity matching was performed to compare outcomes between cardiac surgery patients with OUD (n = 11 359) and without OUD (n = 5 707 193). The Nationwide Inpatient Sample database was queried from January 1998 to December 2013. Data were analyzed in January 2018. Exposures Persistent opioid use and/or dependence. Main Outcomes and Measures In-hospital mortality, complications, length of stay, costs, and discharge disposition. Results Among the 5 718 552 included patients, 3 887 097 (68.0%) were male; the mean (SD) age of patients with OUD was 47.67 (13.03) years and of patients without OUD was 65.53 (26.14) years. The prevalence of OUD among cardiac surgery patients was 0.2% (n = 11 359), with an 8-fold increase over 15 years (0.06% [262 of 437 641] in 1998 vs 0.54% [1425 of 263 930] in 2013; difference, 0.48%; 95% CI of difference, 0.45-0.51; P P P P P P P  = .12), but cardiac surgery patients with OUD had an overall higher incidence of major complications (67.6% vs 59.2%; P P  = .002), pulmonary embolism (7.3% vs 3.8%; P P  = .02), and prolonged postoperative pain (2.0% vs 1.2%; P  = .048) were significantly higher. Patients with OUD also had a significantly longer length of stay (median [SE], 11 [0.30] vs 10 [0.22] days; P P Conclusions and Relevance The population of patients with persistent opioid use or opioid dependency undergoing cardiac surgery has increased over the past decade. Cardiac surgery in patients with OUD is safe but is associated with higher complications and cost. Patients should not be denied surgery because of OUD status but should be carefully monitored postoperatively for complications.