Perioperative Serum Free Hemoglobin and Haptoglobin Levels in Valvular and Aortic Surgery With Cardiopulmonary Bypass: Their Associations With Postoperative Kidney Injury

Objective

To observe the perioperative free hemoglobin and haptoglobin levels and to assess their associations with the risk of postoperative acute kidney injury (pAKI) in adult patients undergoing valvular and aortic surgery requiring cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB).

Design

A single-center, prospective, observational study.

Setting

Public teaching hospital.

Participants

The study comprised 74 adult patients without chronic renal failure who underwent cardiovascular surgery requiring CPB from 2014 to 2020.

Measurements and Main Results

Perioperative free hemoglobin and haptoglobin levels during the study period were obtained from study participants. The primary outcome was pAKI defined by the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes criteria. Of the 74 patients in this study, pAKI occurred in 25 patients (33.8%). The free hemoglobin level began to increase after the initiation of CPB and reached a peak level at 30 minutes after weaning from CPB. It returned to the baseline level on postoperative day one. Haptoglobin levels were the highest after anesthesia induction and decreased continuously until postoperative day one. In the multivariate analysis, maximum free hemoglobin and minimum haptoglobin were associated independently with increased risk of pAKI (adjusted odds ratio 1.33 [95% confidence interval 1.12-1.58; p = 0.001] and 0.95 [95% confidence interval 0.91-1.00; p = 0.03], respectively). The free hemoglobin level began to have an independent association with pAKI at one hour after commencement of CPB, and the independent association disappeared at postoperative day one.

Conclusions

This study found that the perioperative increase of the free hemoglobin level and the decrease of the haptoglobin level had independent associations with the risk of pAKI.