Analyzing Continuous Physiologic Data to Find Hemodynamic Signatures Associated With New Brain Injury After Congenital Heart Surgery

IMPORTANCE:. Continuous data capture technology is becoming more common. Establishing analytic approaches for continuous data could aid in understanding the relationship between physiology and clinical outcomes. OBJECTIVES:. Our objective was to design a retrospective analysis for continuous physiologic measurements and their relationship with new brain injury over time after cardiac surgery. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS:. Retrospective cohort study in the Cardiac Critical Care Unit at the Hospital for Sick Children in patients after repair of transposition of the great arteries (TGA) or single ventricle (SV) lesions. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES:. Continuously acquired physiologic measurements for up to 72 hours after cardiac surgery were analyzed for association with new brain injury by MRI. Distributions of heart rate (HR), systolic blood pressure (BP), and oxygen saturation (Spo2) for SV and TGA were analyzed graphically and with descriptive statistics over postoperative time for data-driven variable selection. Mixed-effects regression analyses characterized relationships between HR, BP, and Spo2 and new brain injury over time while accounting for variation between patients, measurement heterogeneity, and missingness. RESULTS:. Seventy-seven patients (60 TGA; 17 SV) were included. New brain injury was seen in 26 (34%). In SV patients, with and without new brain injury, respectively, in the first 24 hours after cardiac surgery, the median (interquartile range) HR was 172.0 beats/min (bpm) (169.7–176.0 bpm) versus 159.6 bpm (145.0–167.0 bpm); systolic BP 74.8 (67.9–78.5 mm Hg) versus 68.9 mm Hg (61.6–70.9 mm Hg). Higher postoperative HR (parameter estimate, 19.4; 95% CI, 7.8–31; p = 0.003 and BP, 8.6; 1.3–15.8; p = 0.024) were associated with new brain injury in SV patients. The strength of this relationship decreased with time. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE:. Retrospective analysis of continuous physiologic measurements can provide insight into changes in postoperative physiology over time and their relationship with new brain injury. This technique could be applied to assess relationships between physiologic data and many patient interventions or outcomes.