Off-Pump Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting with Use of the Octopus 2 Stabilization System

(#2000-1909 ... June 8, 2000)

Belhhan Akpinar, MD¹, Mustafa Güden, MD¹, Ertan Sagbas, MD¹, Ilhan Sanisoglu, MD¹, Vedat Aytekin, MD², Osman Bayindir, MD³

Kadir Has University Medical Faculty, Florence Nightingale Hospital,
¹ Department of Cardiovascular Surgery
^1,2 Department of Cardiology
^1,3 Department of Anesthesiology
Istanbul, Turkey

The Heart Surgery Forum #2000-1909 3(4):282-286, 2000

ABSTRACT

Background: The treatment of coronary artery disease has evolved rapidly over the last two decades. The gold standard of surgical revascularization, the on-pump coronary artery bypass graft, has been challenged by the development of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty. Our experience with the alternative of the off-pump ("beating heart") coronary artery bypass (OPCAB) technique during a period of 18 months suggests that OPCAB avoids the complications of cardiopulmonary bypass and offers patients the benefit of long-term graft patency that greatly exceeds that of current endovascular technologies.

Methods: The early results of 126 OPCAB procedures performed through a medial sternotomy incision during a period of 18 months were evaluated. There were 80 male and 46 female patients, with a mean age of 69 ± 4.3 years. Emergency cases and reoperations were not included. A total of 268 anastomoses were performed, with a mean number of 2.12 anastomoses per patient. Conduits used, with their percentage of use, were: left internal thoracic artery (LITA) (100%), right internal thoracic artery (11.1%), greater saphenous vein (84%), and radial artery (31%). In 72% of the cases, off-pump surgery was chosen because of patient risk factors such as atherosclerotic aortic disease, previous cerebrovascular accident or carotid artery disease, renal dysfunction, malignancy or poor left ventricular function.

Results: There was no operative mortality. One-month postoperative mortality was three patients (2.3%). Two died because of mesenteric ischemia, and the other death was due to cardiac failure. Seventy-one patients had a control angiogram before discharge. The patency of LITA anastomosis was 100% while overall patency rate was 95%. In 43 patients for whom an angiogram could not be performed, a Thallum 201 stress test was performed three months postoperatively. Thirty-eight patients had a normal test while five patients showed signs of ischemia. These patients had a control angiogram: in four patients anastomoses were patent, but in one patient there was a severe narrowing of a venous anastomosis to the distal right coronary artery (RCA) which was corrected with angioplasty. In the whole series eight patients (6.3%) refused to have any control examination.

Conclusions: Our early results suggest that off-pump CABG with Octopus 2 (Medtronic, Inc., Minneapolis, MN) can be a good alternative in high risk patients who need multiple vessel revascularization.

AUTHOR/ARTICLE INFORMATION

Presented at the Third Annual Meeting of the International Society for Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery, Atlanta, GA, June 8-10, 2000.

Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Belhhan Akpinar, MD, Florence Nightingale Hastanesi, Abide-i Hürriyet Cd. No:290, 80220, Istanbul/Turkey, Phone: 090 212 239 87 90, Fax: 090 212 239 87 91, Email: belh@turk.net