BackgroundRisk scores for cardiac surgery cannot continue to be neglected.ObjectiveTo assess the performance of “Age, Creatinine and Ejection Fraction Score” (ACEF
Score) to predict mortality in patients submitted to elective coronary artery
bypass graft and/or heart valve surgery, and to compare it to other scores.MethodsA prospective cohort study was carried out with the database of a Brazilian
tertiary care center. A total of 2,565 patients submitted to elective surgeries
between May 2007 and July 2009 were assessed. For a more detailed analysis, the
ACEF Score performance was compared to the InsCor’s and EuroSCORE’s performance
through correlation, calibration and discrimination tests.ResultsPatients were stratified into mild, moderate and severe for all models.
Calibration was inadequate for ACEF Score (p = 0.046) and adequate for InsCor (p =
0.460) and EuroSCORE (p = 0.750). As for discrimination, the area under the ROC
curve was questionable for the ACEF Score (0.625) and adequate for InsCor (0.744)
and EuroSCORE (0.763).ConclusionAlthough simple to use and practical, the ACEF Score, unlike InsCor and EuroSCORE,
was not accurate for predicting mortality in patients submitted to elective
coronary artery bypass graft and/or heart valve surgery in a Brazilian tertiary
care center.