[Off-pump coronary artery bypass via median sternotomy]

Off-pump coronary artery bypass grafting (off-pump CABG: OPCAB) is a useful technique of coronary revascularization in terms of reduction of operative mortality and morbidity. Because the biggest advantage of OPCAB may be that it can prevent perioperative stroke, we selected patients for OPCAB based on the preoperative evaluation of neck and intracranial vessels. We could totally eliminate intraoperative stroke in patients undergoing OPCAB, although some patients with a severe neck vessel disease developed postoperative stroke/transient ischemic attack in an early postoperative period (the 4th approximately 8th postoperative day) mostly due to thrombosis from the diseased vessel. Therefore, high-risk patients with a severe neck vessel disease should be treated with a more aggressive anticoagulation protocol postoperatively. As for the quality of grafting, the number of graft, the rate of complete revascularization, and early graft patency were comparable between OPCAB and CABG with a cardiopulmonary bypass. The long-term results in terms of freedom from cardiac death and cardiac events were also comparable. We conclude that we could achieve less invasiveness in coronary revascularization by using an OPCAB technique without compromising the quality of grafting.