Purpose: Little has been documented about whether the severity of peripheral artery disease (PAD) affects the postoperative outcomes of coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG).
Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of 683 patients who underwent isolated CABG, comparing preoperative profiles and postoperative outcomes between patients with PAD (n = 116) and those without PAD (n = 567). Kaplan-Meier analysis was done to examine the long-term survival and the Cox proportional hazard model was used to establish the preoperative risk factors associated with survival.
Results: The PAD patients were older and had more preoperative comorbidities than those without PAD. There were three operative deaths in each group (p = 0.07). The patients with PAD had more postoperative complications related to transfusion requirement (p = 0.004), the need for re-exploration for bleeding (p = 0.04), longer ventilation time (p < 0.001), and longer ICU stay (p = 0.001), than those without PAD. The 10-year survival rate of the PAD patients was lower than that of the non-PAD patients (p < 0.001). Univariate and multivariate analyses revealed that symptomatic PAD (p = 0.008) was associated with decreased long-term survival.
Conclusion: Symptomatic PAD was found to be an independent factor for poor long-term survival after CABG. Thus, aggressive screening measures for coronary disease, early surgical revascularization, and secondary prevention may improve the early and long-term outcomes of these patients.
Keywords: Coronary artery bypass; Coronary artery disease; Peripheral artery disease.