Background: Despite increasing recognition that off-pump coronary artery bypass surgery and total arterial revascularization individually are associated with improved outcomes, concerns persist regarding the safety of combining these two techniques. We compared in-hospital outcomes for off-pump multivessel total arterial and conventional coronary artery bypass grafting.
Methods: From September 1998 to September 2008, 580 consecutive patients receiving off-pump multivessel arterial grafts only were compared with a control group of patients (n = 806) undergoing off-pump coronary artery bypass grafting with internal thoracic artery and saphenous veins operated on by the same surgeon. Two different statistical approaches were used to compare groups in this retrospective analysis. First, propensity score analysis was used to match patients from each group. Second, a multivariate analysis was performed looking at a combined patient outcome of death, intraaortic balloon counterpulsation utilization, myocardial infarction, stroke, prolonged ventilation, and reoperation for any cause on all patients in both groups.
Results: After matching by propensity score, the major clinical outcomes in total arterial (n = 346) and control (n = 346) groups were found to be similar. The in-hospital mortality in the total arterial group was 1.2% as compared with 2.0% in matched patients (p = 0.8). However, patients in the total arterial group were found to have a significantly increased incidence of reexploration for bleeding (p < 0.0001) and blood product usage (p < 0.0001). There was a higher incidence of combined morbidity outcome (18.8% versus 12.1%; p = 0.001) for the control group compared with the total arterial group. Multivariate analysis failed to show that total arterial grafting was an independent predictor of the combined morbidity outcome.
Conclusions: Off-pump multivessel total arterial grafting can be performed safely with superior in-hospital outcomes compared with off-pump conventional coronary artery bypass grafting.