Story originally posted on 6 April 2009.

A major study of more than 40,000 patients has shown that social deprivation significantly reduces patients' chances of survival after heart surgery.

Research from the University of Birmingham and and University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) has shown that patients from more socially deprived backgrounds had poorer survival rates after cardiac surgery both immediately after the operation (in hospital) and over five years of follow up.

These findings raise concerns that patients from deprived areas are not receiving the full benefits from proven surgical procedures.

This large scale research project involved the Birmingham and North West of England Cardiac Surgical Centres and the Quality and Outcomes Research Unit (QuORU) led by UHB.

The paper, which is published today in the British Medical Journal, looked at 44,902 patients (average age of 65) from the West Midlands and North West England, who received heart surgery at five different hospitals, between 1997 and 2007. This included data for a wide range of procedures including coronary bypass grafts and valve replacements. Deprivation for each patient was calculated using a scale compiled for the 2001 census.

Domenico Pagano who led the team of investigators from UHB said: "This research suggests that the benefits of cardiac surgery are less in patients from deprived background. The challenge is to identify the factors that determine this gap and to address them

"By conducting an extremely large analysis we are able to get a real sense of the factors which impact upon survival rates after cardiac surgery.

"By looking at a large number of patients we have results that highlight national trends.

"The success rates of common surgeries like coronary artery bypass grafting or valve replacement has improved significantly but this research shows that more deprived people do not survive as long as those who experience less deprivation, after surgery.

"The study clearly showed smoking, obesity and diabetes, had a significant negative impact on survival rates. All these factors were strongly associated with social deprivation.

"However, we were also able to show that social deprivation had an independent negative effect on survival that was clinically important and statistically significant even after adjusting for other factors."

The study showed that social deprivation was a highly significant factor in a patient's risks of in-hospital mortality after surgery (which was 3.25% amongst the group).

There was an even stronger relationship between social deprivation and death during the five-year follow up after surgery. 5563 patients (12.4%) died during the follow up period. However, there was a 2.4% rise in a patient's risk of mortality for each point of increase on the deprivation scale.

Professor Nick Freemantle from the University of Birmingham adds: "The relationship between deprivation and mortality was pronounced, but this study raises concerns that the effect of proven healthcare interventions may not be equally distributed across socioeconomic boundaries.

"The reasons for this relationship are complex, probably including diet, lifestyle and access to healthcare.

"However, this study does highlight the paramount importance of developing rehabilitation programmes both before and after surgery which include aggressive smoking cessation, and nutritional and behavioural support to try and reduce these health inequalities."

Daniel Ray, Director of Informatics from the QuORU, said the research showed the importance of collecting healthcare data:

"This research has been possible because of the extensive data collection that has been going on in cardiac surgery in this country in the last 10 years. Along with the ability of linking healthcare databases, this may further help in identifying problems and informing healthcare policy going forward.

"What has also been fundamental is the engagement of informatics professionals with clinicians and academic colleagues to combine and make research such as this happen. This was one of the main drivers of establishing the QuORU unit."