The association of prior carpal tunnel syndrome surgery with adverse cardiovascular outcomes and long-term mortality after aortic valve replacement

Aims: Patients undergoing aortic valve replacement (AVR) for severe aortic stenosis have a 6-16% prevalence of occult cardiac amyloidosis. Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is common in cardiac amyloidosis, but whether prior CTS surgery has a prognostic impact in patients undergoing AVR is unknown. This study examined the association between prior CTS surgery and adverse cardiovascular outcomes in patients treated with AVR.

Methods and results: Using Danish nationwide registries, we retrospectively identified patients undergoing first-time AVR from 2005 to 2018, examining the association between previous CTS and adverse cardiovascular outcomes the following 5 years after the AVR procedure. Cumulative incidence functions and adjusted Cox proportional hazard models were used to assess differences. Among 19,211 patients undergoing AVR, 2.5% (n = 472) had prior CTS surgery. Patients in the CTS-cohort were significantly older (median age 75.7 [IQR 68.1-82.3] vs 73.7 [IQR 66.0-79.6]), more often female and had more comorbidities. Prior CTS surgery was not associated with differences in hospitalization for heart failure (11.2% [95% CI 8.3-14.7] vs 9.4% [95% CI 9.0-9.9]), atrial fibrillation (11.1% [95% CI 8.2-14.5] vs 11.2% [95% CI 10.8-11.7]) or pacemaker implantation (6.2% [95% CI 4.0-9.0] vs 5.1% [95% CI 4.8-5.5]). The 5-year mortality (32.8% [27.6-38.0] vs 25.2% [24.5-25.9]) was higher in the CTS-cohort. CTS was significantly associated with increased 5-year mortality (HR 1.27 [1.05-1.53]) in crude models, however, after multivariable adjustment prior CTS surgery was not associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes.

Conclusion: Previous CTS surgery was not associated with increased risk for adverse cardiovascular outcomes after AVR.