BackgroundExploring reliable prediction scoring systems is valuable for the poor prognosis of patients after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). Herein, we explored and compared the predictive performance of vasoactive-inotropic score (VIS), vasoactive-ventilation-renal (VVR) score, and modified VVR (M-VVR) score in the poor prognosis of patients undergoing CABG.MethodsA retrospective cohort study was performed in Affiliated Hospital of Jining Medical University, and data of 537 patients were collected from January 2019 to May 2021. The independent variables were VIS, VVR, and M-VVR. Study endpoint of interest was the poor prognosis. Association between VIS, VVR, M-VVR and poor prognosis was assessed using logistic regression analysis, and odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were reported. The performance of VIS, VVR, and M-VVR to predict the poor prognosis was assessed by calculating the area under the curve (AUC), and differences of the AUC of the three scoring systems were compared using DeLong test.ResultsAfter adjusting gender, BMI, hypertension, diabetes, surgery methods, and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), VIS (OR: 1.09, 95%CI: 1.05–1.13) and M-VVR (OR: 1.09, 95%CI: 1.06–1.12) were associated with the increased odds of poor prognosis. The AUC of M-VVR, VVR, and VIS was 0.720 (95%CI: 0.668–0.771), 0.621 (95%CI: 0.566–0.677), and 0.685 (95%CI: 0.631–0.739), respectively. DeLong test displayed that the performance of M-VVR was better than VVR (P= 0.004) and VIS (P= 0.003).ConclusionsOur study found the good prediction performance of M-VVR for the poor prognosis of patients undergoing CABG, indicating that M-VVR may be a useful prediction index in the clinic.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12872-023-03313-9.