Re‐exploration after off‐pump coronary artery bypass grafting: Incidence, risk factors, and impact of timing

Re-exploration after cardiac surgery still remains a troublesome complication. There is still a scarcity of data about the effect of re-exploration after off-pump coronary artery bypass grafting (OPCABG). We here represent our experience on re-exploration following OPCABG.A total of 5990 OPCABG were performed at our center, out of these patients, 132 (2.2%) were re-explored in the operation room and were included in this study. The medical records of these patients were retrospectively reviewed.The most common cause of re-exploration was bleeding (83.3%) and the most common site of bleeding was from graft/anastomosis (53.8%). The mean time to re-exploration was 9.75 ± 8.65 hours. The thirty-day mortality was 1.41%. On univariate and multiple regression analysis, emergency surgery, preoperative low platelet count, and the number of grafts were found to be independent risk factors for re-exploration. On multiple regression, emergency surgery, Euroscore II, low platelet count, low ejection fraction, re-exploration, time to re-exploration, blood products used, and high postoperative serum creatinine and bilirubin were found to be independent factors (P .001) for mortality. On receiver-operating characteristic analysis, the optimum cutoff for time to re-exploration was 14 hours with a sensitivity of 81.3%, specificity of 80%, and area under the curve of 0.798. Patients who re-explored late (14 hours) had significantly high mortality (30.55% vs 7.3%) and morbidity.Delaying re-exploration is associated with a three fold increase in mortality and morbidity. So, a strategy of minimizing the incidence of re-exploration, like the use of minimally invasive surgery and early re-exploration with the judicial use of products, should be used to improve outcomes after re-exploration following OPCABG.