• Luca Mircoli, Niccolò Bacà, Barbara Antonelli, Lucio Caccamo, Emanuele Cattaneo, Federico Colombo, Clara Dibenedetto, Livia Diehl, Maria Francesca Donato, Andrea Faggiano, Massimo Alberto Iavarone, Pietro Lampertico, Cristina Marenghi, Federico Polli, Edoardo Quarenghi, Fabiola B Sozzi, Cristina Spaziani, Giulia Tosetti, Carlo Valsecchi, Pierluigi Vicardi, Marco Vicenzi, Arianna Zefelippo, Massimiliano Ruscica, and Stefano Carugo.
• Department of Cardio-Thoracic-Vascular Diseases, Foundation IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Milan, Italy.
• Ann. Med. 2023 Dec 1; 55 (1): 22375212237521.

BackgroundCoronary artery disease (CAD) is associated with perioperative liver transplantation (LT) mortality. In absence of a defined risk algorithm, we aimed to test whether stress echocardiography and coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) could detect CAD in end-stage liver disease (ESLD) patients without previous evidence of heart disease.MethodsLT candidates ≥30 years underwent a cardiovascular (CV) assessment through stress echocardiography. CCTA was performed in patients ≥50 years with two or more CV risk factors (e.g. diabetes, CAD family history, dyslipidaemia). Coronary angiography (CAG) was scheduled when stress echocardiography and/or CCTA were positive. Sensibility, specificity, positive and negative predictive values of stress echocardiography and CCTA were assessed by numbers of coronary revascularization (true positives) and lack of acute coronary events over a mean follow-up of 3 years (true negatives).ResultsStress echocardiography was performed in 273 patients, CCTA in 34 and CAG in 41. Eight patients had critical coronary lesions, and 19 not-critical lesions. Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values were 50.0%, 90.2%, 13.3% and 98.4% for stress echocardiography and 100%, 76.7%, 36.4% and 100% for CCTA. Among 163 patients who underwent LT (57.6%), 16 died and 5 had major adverse CV events over a mean follow-up of 3 years.ConclusionsA very low prevalence of CAD in a selected population of ESLD at intermediate to high CV risk was found. A screening based on stress echocardiography and CCTA resulted in low incidence of post-LT acute coronary events in ELSD patients. CAD has no impact on mid-term survival.

13 keywords...

hide…