Abstract
Background The American University of Beirut (AUB)-HAS2 Cardiovascular Risk Index is a newly derived index for preoperative cardiovascular evaluation. It is based on 6 data elements: history of heart disease; symptoms of angina or dyspnea; age ≥75 years; hemoglobin <12 mg/dL; vascular surgery; and emergency surgery. In this study we analyze the performance of this new index and compare it with that of the Revised Cardiac Risk Index in a broad spectrum of surgical subpopulations. Methods and Results The study population consisted of 1 167 278 noncardiac surgeries registered in the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database. Each patient was given an AUB-HAS2 score of 0, 1, 2, 3, or >3, depending on the number of data elements present. The performance of the AUB-HAS2 index was studied in 9 surgical specialty groups and in 8 commonly performed site-specific surgeries. Receiver operating characteristic curves were constructed for the AUB-HAS2 and Revised Cardiac Risk Index measures, and the areas under the curve were compared. The outcome measure was death, myocardial infarction, or stroke at 30 days after surgery. The AUB-HAS2 score was able to stratify risk in all surgical subgroups (
<0.001). In the majority of surgeries, patients with an AUB-HAS2 score of 0 had an event rate of <0.5%. The performance of the AUB-HAS2 index was superior to that of the Revised Cardiac Risk Index in all surgical subgroups (
<0.001). Conclusions This study extends the validation of the AUB-HAS2 index to a broad spectrum of surgical subpopulations and demonstrates its superior discriminatory power compared with the commonly utilized Revised Cardiac Risk Index.