Discussion

Dr David D'Alessandro (Boston, Mass). I want to thank the Association and our moderators for the opportunity to discuss this article and the authors for providing the manuscript to review in advance. Dr Thalji, I commend you and your coauthors for this thoughtful review of the Mayo Clinic's 20-year experience operating on patients with severely low ejection fractions (EFs) when performing routine cardiac surgery. The long-term results of your entire cohort are commendable, a 5-year survival of 60%, which is higher than most published series of low EF surgery patients, yet we don't know anything about their functional status or quality of life, and, as you point out, those with a history of prior cardiac surgery, those that are older or with more advanced disease had less good results.
Source: The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery - Category: Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgery Source Type: research