OPCAB procedure in patient over 75 years-old- experience in the Department of Cardiac Surgery in `Sveta Marina` University Hospital, Varna, Bulgaria

Abstract

Being on the mainstream surgery techniques OPCAB continues to be hotly debated. Performing off-pump coronary bypass grafting has a number of purported advantages over conventional CABG. The main advantages claimed for OPCAB include: reduction in risk of death, stroke, myocardial infarction, arrhythmias, renal insufficiency, and neurocognitive disfunction.Age has been recognized as an independent predictor of mortality in patients undergoing CABG.With increasing patient`s age, a number of comorbidities also increasingly manifests in elderly patient`s population (diabetes, renal insufficiency, pulmonary disease, cerebrovascular disease, atheromatous aorta), each of witch may also be independently associated with mortality in CABG.Other benefits reported to be implicated with off-pump coronary artery grafting is reducton in resource utilization (intensive care unit stay, postoperative hospital stay) in high-risk patinets. We report our experience in OPCAB surgery in patients older than 75 years, comparing the early results with a cohort of patients performed with the conventional CABG technique. We reviwed 107 patients between 2011 and 2013. The patients were divided in to two groups. Forty-five patients menaged with OPCAB technique and 62 patients managed with the conventional CABG technique. There were no in hospital deaths in the OPCAB group and five deaths in the CABG group. Key words: OPCAB, CABG, age, mortality