Quality of Life After Cardiac Surgery
Quality of Life After Cardiac Surgery
During the last twenty years heart surgery has become safer and the number of patients having
 heart surgery has increased with more frail patients being offered increasingly complex
 surgery. Heart operations often improve survival and quality of life (QoL), but that is not
 true for all patients. Regarding survival, clinicians can measure the risk to life from
 having a heart operation and the risk to life from not quite precisely, but clinicians have
 little idea about the impact of heart operations on QoL, which is the outcome that patients
 care about most. Clinicians are unable to provide patients with robust information on how an
 operation will affect their QoL. This study will provide this information by analysing the
 data from patient questionnaires immediately before and after the procedure and monthly
 thereafter for 12 months.
The Sponsor shall use existing questionnaires to measure QoL in patients having major heart
 surgery. QoL will be measured before the operation and monthly afterwards for 12 months in
 order to answer the following questions:

 1. How does having heart surgery affect the QoL immediately after the operation?

 2. How long does it take patients to return to the same quality of life they had before the
 surgery?

 3. How long does it take patients to regain any loss of quality of life due to the
 operation? Does quality of life improve thereafter?

 4. What proportion of patients will achieve a net benefit in QoL?

 5. Are there features that can predict who will benefit in terms of QoL and who will not?
 The Sponsor will use the data to develop an electronic calculator to enable quick and
 robust evaluation of the impact of heart surgery on the QoL of individuals. Patients
 will then be able to give truly informed consent and to decide if they wish have surgery
 based on a full knowledge of both surgical risk and the potential impact on QoL.
Inclusion Criteria:

 -  EuroSCORE II ≥ 3% or EuroSCORE logistic of ≥ 6%

 -  Patients undergoing routine/ urgent cardiac surgery

 -  Patients must have the ability to provide informed consent

 Exclusion Criteria:

 -  Patients undergoing salvage or emergency operations