Association and predictive ability between significant perioperative cardiovascular adverse events and stress glucose rise in patients undergoing non-cardiac surgery.

Background: The predictive importance of the stress hyperglycemia ratio (SHR), which is composed of admission blood glucose (ABG) and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), has not been fully established in noncardiac surgery. This study aims to evaluate the association and predictive capability the SHR for major perioperative adverse cardiovascular events (MACEs) in noncardiac surgery patients.

Methods: Individuals who underwent noncardiac surgical procedures between 2011 and 2020, including both diabetic and non-diabetic patients, were identified in the perioperative medicine database (INSPIRE 1.1) and classified into tertiles based on their SHR. The connection between the SHR and the risk of MACEs was studied using Cox proportional hazards regression analysis, then restricted cubic spline (RCS) was employed to assess the association's form. Additionally, the SHR's incremental predictive utility for MACEs was assessed by the C-statistic, continuous net reclassification improvement (NRI), and integrated discrimination improvement (IDI), thereby quantifying the enhancement in predictive accuracy brought by incorporating the SHR into existing risk models. Feature importance and predictive models were generated utilizing the Boruta algorithm and machine learning approaches.

Results: A total of 5609 patients were enrolled. With an upwards shift in SHR vertices, the rate of perioperative MACEs and cardiac death event steadily rose. The RCS analysis for perioperative MACEs and cardiac death event both indicated J-shaped associations. Inflection points occurred at SHR = 0.81 for MACEs and SHR = 0.97 for cardiac death. The model's fit improved significantly, with a continuous NRI of 0.067 (95% CI: 0.025-0.137, P < 0.001) and an IDI of 0.305 (95% CI: 0.155-0.430, P < 0.001). When SHR was added as a categorical variable (> 0.81), the C-statistic increased to 0.785 (95% CI: 0.756-0.814) with a ΔC-statistic of 0.035 (P = 0.009), a continuous NRI of 0.007 (95% CI: 0.000-0.021, P = 0.016), and an IDI of 0.076 (95% CI -0.024-0.142, P = 0.092). In the Boruta algorithm, variables identified as important features in the green area were incorporated into the machine learning models development.

Conclusions: The SHR was related with an increased risk of perioperative MACEs in patients following noncardiac surgery, highlighting its potential as a useful and reliable predictive tool for assessing the risk of perioperative MACEs.