Effect of fibrinogen replacement therapy on bleeding outcomes and 1-year mortality in patients undergoing thoracic aortic surgery: a retrospective cohort study

This study aimed to examine the effect of fibrinogen replacement therapy with cryoprecipitate or fibrinogen concentrate on bleeding outcomes and 1-year mortality in patients undergoing thoracic aortic surgery.

We retrospectively studied 439 consecutive patients who underwent thoracic aortic surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass between January 1st, 2010 and December 31st, 2019 and identified patients who received cryoprecipitate or fibrinogen concentrate (the fibrinogen replacement group) and those who did not (the control group). Multivariate analyses were performed to examine the associations of fibrinogen replacement therapy with perioperative major bleeding (i.e., excessive hemorrhage or blood transfusion), re-exploration for bleeding, and 1-year mortality.

There were 285 patients in the fibrinogen replacement group who received 2.2 ± 1.0 g of concentrated fibrinogen amount and 154 patients in the control group. The incidence of major bleeding in the fibrinogen replacement group was less than that in the control group in patients with fibrinogen level < 150 mg/dL during cardiopulmonary bypass (49.7% versus 74.6%, p = 0.0007, multivariate odds ratio; 0.33, 95% confidence intervals; 0.12–0.91, p = 0.03), but not in patients with fibrinogen level ≥ 150 mg/dL (25.0% versus 29.6%, p = 0.51). No significant difference was found in re-exploration for bleeding (1.0% versus 1.3%, p = 1.00) or 1-year mortality (10.4% versus 5.3%, multivariate Cox proportional-hazard ratio; 1.03, 95% confidence intervals; 0.82–1.31, p = 0.74) between the fibrinogen replacement group and the control group.

The results of this study indicate that 2–3 g of fibrinogen replacement reduces the incidence of major bleeding in patients with hypofibrinogenemia during cardiopulmonary bypass in thoracic aortic surgery.