Heart surgery sedative may cut confusion risk, massive study hints

Copied word for word from the study's registry entry, so the wording is the study team's rather than ours.

Inclusion Criteria: * A qualifying CABG-coded procedure for the primary analysis, or a qualifying valve-coded procedure for the separate exploratory analysis, during 1 January 2010 through 1 July 2025. * Age at Event 18-100 at a qualifying procedure, subject to the platform's additional age-related privacy restrictions. * A procedure-date index defined by the first qualifying procedure within the clinical period after the date and age filters, with the same eligibility logic in both exposure groups within each procedure population. * Data contributed by healthcare organisations providing demographics, diagnoses, procedures, medications and laboratory domains. * Medication-record status classified using RxNorm 48937 during days -1 through 0 relative to the qualifying index procedure. Exclusion Criteria: * An ESRD or dialysis record during days -90 through -1: ICD-10-CM N18.6, Z49 or Z99.2; SNOMED CT 265764009; ICD-10-PCS 5A1D60Z or 5A1D00Z; or ICD-9-CM 39.95. * Any R41.0 or F05 record on or before day 0 in all available prior history relative to the index procedure, applied before matching in both the CABG-coded and valve-coded populations. Primary, secondary, F05-only and encounter endpoints retain this eligibility definition. Native matching is repeated within each outcome batch, and identical matched patients across batches are not established. Some eligibility records may occur after the exposure window begins on day -1, which may introduce selection or collider bias despite application before matching. The study does not require continuous preoperative observation, complete 30-day follow-up or survival to a landmark. Missing laboratory measurements do not automatically exclude a patient. The available aggregate outputs do not permit clinical adjudication of individual procedures or confirmation that surgery is first-ever or isolated.