The correlation between the European System for Cardiac Operative Risk Evaluation and the Model for End-Stage Liver Disease in patients with coronary artery bypass graft surgery

The Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) score is a widely used tool for quantifying hepatic dysfunction, providing greater accuracy and a wider range of values compared to the Child-Turcotte-Pugh (CTP) score, being also used in prioritizing patients who are eligible for liver transplantation. This study assessed the correlation between the MELD score and the European System for Cardiac Operative Risk Evaluation II (EuroSCORE II), a reliable system for categorizing risk levels in patients undergoing cardiovascular surgery. This retrospective study analyzed data from 589 patients who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) at the Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases 'Prof. Dr. George I.M. Georgescu' in Iași between January 2011 and December 2020. Data collected included demographical, clinical, biochemical, and intraoperative parameters. The average MELD score was 6.09 ± 4.1 (median = 5.72), and the average EuroSCORE II was 6.28 ± 8 (median = 3.85). A significant but relatively modest positive relationship was found between the MELD score and EuroSCORE II, with a correlation coefficient of 0.23 and a corresponding significance level of 0.001. This study demonstrates a positive correlation between MELD and EuroSCORE II in patients who underwent CABG. Incorporating the MELD score into the preoperative risk assessment of cardiac surgery patients could help identify high-risk individuals and guide clinical decision-making.