Off-pump coronary surgery may reduce stroke, respiratory failure, and mortality in octogenarians.

Background: Octogenarians are a challenging group of patients referred for cardiac surgery. The aim of this study is to assess early outcomes of coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) performed in the elderly population.
Methods: We performed a meta-analysis of all published observational studies comparing early results of conventional CABG surgery and off-pump CABG surgery in patients aged 80 years or older. The outcomes of interest were mortality, stroke, respiratory failure, renal failure, incidence of support with intraaortic balloon pump, and incidence of postoperative atrial fibrillation. The random effects model was used.
Results: Fourteen studies were analyzed. The total number of included subjects was 4,991, of whom 3,113 underwent conventional CABG surgery (62.4%), and 1,878 (37.6%) underwent off-pump CABG surgery. The rates of mortality, stroke, and respiratory failure were significantly higher in the conventional CABG surgery group.
Conclusions: These results confirm that off-pump CABG surgery remains a valuable option of surgical myocardial revascularization, and may optimize the outcome in senior patients.
(Copyright © 2012 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)