UK study reveals worrying survival gap between rich and poor after heart surgery

People from the most deprived areas of England have a far higher risk of death after cardiac surgery than people from the least deprived areas, finds a large study published on bmj.com today. Cardiovascular disease is the commonest cause of early death in the Western world and is closely related to social and economic deprivation. Cardiac surgery has significant benefits, but it is not clear whether they apply equally to all patients, irrespective of their social and economic circumstances. So a team of researchers set out to assess the effects of social deprivation on survival following a range of cardiac surgical procedures. They analysed data on 44,902 patients, with an average age of 65 years, who underwent cardiac surgery between 1997 and 2007 at five hospitals in Birmingham and North West England. Social deprivation was calculated for all patients based on their postcode at the 2001 census for England and Wales. A total of 1,461 patients (3.25%) died in hospital following their surgery and 5,563 patients (12.4%) died during five year follow-up. Social deprivation was a strong independent predictor of death - Science Centric