Material and Methods
At our center, 56 patients were included in the CORONARY trial according
to the inclusion criteria of the original protocol 8.
Forty-nine patients were alive at the five-year follow-up, see figure 1.
In on-pump CABG, CPB was instituted without active cooling and cold
(4°C) anterograde blood cardioplegia solution, containing 20 mmol/l
potassium, was used for myocardial protection. In the off-pump group, an
Octopus Evolution Stabilizer (Medtronic, Minneapolis, USA) and the
Heartstring III (Maquet, Karlsruhe, Germany) 4.3 mm device for proximal
anastomosis were used. In this group, the proximal anastomoses were
performed before grafting of the distal targets. No conversion between
the techniques was needed. Two surgeons who fulfilled the expertise
criteria performed the procedures 8. The SV was always
harvested according to the NT technique 2. All
patients scheduled to undergo the five-year clinical follow-up were
asked to undergo a computed tomography angiography (CTA) to evaluate
graft patency. The study was approved by the Regional Ethical Review
Board. All the patients were included at follow-up after informed
consent. Baseline data was retrieved from our local registry.