Excess weight also linked to extended hospital stays, researchers find
FRIDAY, June 3, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Severely obese patients may have a higher risk of certain complications after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery than normal-weight patients, according to a study published online June 1 in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Mary Forhan, Ph.D., of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and colleagues reviewed data for 7,560 Canadians who had CABG between 2003 and 2014.
The researchers found that severely obese patients had triple the risk of infection after CABG compared to patients of normal weight. The severely obese also spent a median of one day more in the hospital. And among severely obese patients, those with diabetes who developed an infection had hospital stays that were more than three times longer than for patients without either health condition. In addition, severely obese patients were 56 percent more likely to have complications within a month of surgery. The risk of complications was 35 percent higher among moderately obese patients.
“Based on the results of this study, it appears that addressing infection risk might be an effective strategy to decrease the length-of-stay for patients with obesity who undergo coronary artery bypass surgery,” Forhan said in a journal news release. “We need further study that includes ways of preventing infection using evidence-based methods, and determining if such methods meet the needs of coronary artery bypass patients with moderate to severe obesity.”
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