The Society of Thoracic Surgeons released a new short-term risk calculator (operative/30-day risk) specific to isolated mitral valve repair (MVr) surgery for primary mitral regurgitation (MR) and degenerative mitral etiology. This novel risk calculator is based on the contemporary national surgical experience from the STS Adult Cardiac Surgery Database. You can read about the development of this model in the article published jointly by The Annals of Thoracic Surgery1 and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
The STS Primary MR Risk Calculator allows surgeons to estimate a patient’s risk for multiple outcomes: operative mortality, combined operative mortality or major morbidity, and conversion to MV replacement after attempted repair. It is intended to provide patients, surgeons, and physicians with objective estimates of risk to guide the decision-making for the most appropriate treatment approach given a patient’s specific risk profile.
The estimates should be considered as only one of several sources of information in cardiothoracic decision-making and patient counseling. Other sources include, but are not limited to, the clinical judgment of the surgeon, referring cardiologist, and primary care physician, as well as patient and family preferences. The risk calculator should never be used to exclude patients from surgery based on higher risks associated with a single characteristic (e.g., sex, race, payer).
A video tutorial for the new tool is currently under development.
Questions? Contact the STS Research and Analytic Center.
1 Badhwar V, Chikwe J, Gillinov AM, Vemulapalli S, O’Gara PT, Mehaffey JH, Ballmoos MWV, Bowdish ME, Gray EL, O’Brien SM, Thourani VH, Shahian DM, Habib RH. Risk of Surgical Mitral Valve Repair for Primary Mitral Regurgitation. Ann Thorac Surg 2023;115(3):600-610.
STS is reviewing its practice of making adult cardiac surgery risk model coefficients and intercepts available to investigators. We are unable to facilitate requests for risk model information at this time.