Arq. Bras. Cardiol. 2025; 122(4): e20250171

Nutritional Indices and Postoperative Atrial Fibrillation: The Triglyceride-Cholesterol-Body Weight Index

Zulkif Tanriverdi

DOI: 10.36660/abc.20250171i

This Short Editorial is referred by the Research article "Parameter Predicting Postoperative Atrial Fibrillation in Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting Patients: Triglyceride-Cholesterol-Body Weight Index".

Postoperative atrial fibrillation (POAF) is one of the most common complications after cardiac surgery and the most common cause of secondary atrial fibrillation (AF). Although it occurs at different rates depending on the type of cardiac operation, it has been reported to occur in approximately 20% of patients after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). Despite technological advances and all the preventive strategies developed, it is still relatively common.^, POAF increases the length and cost of hospitalization and is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. It may also be a predictor of non-surgical AF development in the years after the cardiac surgery. Therefore, it is important to anticipate patients who may develop POAF after the cardiac surgery.

To date, many serum biomarkers have been investigated to identify patients at risk for POAF. Recently, it has been demonstrated that malnutrition is prevalent in hospitalized patients, and malnutrition has been found to be associated with a higher incidence of AF and adverse cardiac outcomes due to slowing down the recovery process and increasing the risk of complications.^, Many different nutritional screening tools, from very simple to quite complex, are available to assess malnutrition in daily clinical practice. Some novel nutritional indices have been developed by objectively measurable parameters such as triglyceride, total cholesterol, body weight, albumin, lymphocyte, and additional laboratory variables to identify nutritional status. Although various systems and scores have been assessed in clinical studies, 4 objective nutritional indices have commonly been proposed for the evaluation of malnutrition as follows: geriatric nutritional risk index (GNRI), prognostic nutrition index (PNI), triglyceride-cholesterol-body weight Index (TCBI) and controlling nutritional status score.

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