Does Preoperative Hemoglobin Independently Predict Short-Term Outcomes After Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery?

As several risk factors may occur concurrently with low hemoglobin, preoperative hemoglobin level less than 10 g/dL was not a strong independent predictor of 30-day operative mortality or perioperative morbidity in multivariate models for on-pump CABG-only patients. Hemoglobin and serum creatinine were correlated, with creatinine exhibiting the stronger association with mortality. These findings suggest that moderate or severe anemia may be intertwined with other risk factors, such as serum creatinine or congestive heart failure. For a CABG patient subgroup presenting with a complex clinical preoperative profile, therefore, risk-model approaches may be inherently limited in separately identifying the predictors of anemic patients' outcomes.