Haemostatic management for oral surgery in patients supported with left ventricular assist device– a preliminary retrospective study

We investigated haemostatic management, frequency of postoperative bleeding, and prognosis of patients who had left ventricular assist devices, and who were having oral surgical procedures between April 2002 and March 2014, to identify risk factors for bleeding and find out which were the best methods of haemostasis. Medical records were examined retrospectively and we recorded details of the patients, and frequency of bleeding together with factors associated with it. Twenty-nine patients had 39 oral operations, and there were 17 bleeds (44%). The first procedure for each patient was used for statistical calculations. Duration of bleeding tended to be longer for patients with implantable devices (median (interquartile range, IQR) 12.0 (3-18) days) than for those with extracorporeal devices (median (IQR) 3.0 (1-4) days; p = 0.079). There was a significantly greater difference in prothrombin time-international normalised ratio (PT-INR) before and after operation in patients who bled, whose median (range) was 0.85 (0.2-1.81), than in those who did not (median (IQR) 0.16 (-0.09-0.31) (p = 0.015). There were moderate correlations with postoperative bleeding were seen for the difference between preoperative and postoperative PT-INR (r = 0.479, p = 0.012) and PT-INR value when bleeding (r = 0.407, p = 0.035). In conclusion, postoperative bleeding occurred after oral operations in 17/29 patients with left ventricular assist devices by a median (IQR) of 0.85 (0.2-1.81) of the preoperative value.