Off-pump versus on-pump coronary artery bypass grafting in patients with diabetes: a meta-analysis

The effects of off-pump CABG (OFF-CABG) versus on-pump CABG (ON-CABG) in diabetic patients remain controversial. The aim of our study was to compare mortality and postoperative morbidity between OFF-CABG and ON-CABG for diabetic patients.

Electronic databases including PubMed, EMBASE and Cochrane Library for studies investigating clinical outcomes of OFF-CABG versus ON-CABG in diabetic patients were searched, collecting data from inception until June 2016. We pooled the odds ratios from individual studies and performed heterogeneity, quality assessment and publication bias analysis.

A total of 543,220 diabetic patients in 10 studies were included. The overall mortality (OR, 0.87; 95% CI, 0.58-1.31; p = 0.50) was comparable between the OFF-CABG and ON-CABG. OFF-CABG was associated with significantly fewer cerebrovascular accidents (OR, 0.45; 95% CI, 0.31-0.65; p < 0.0001), bleeding complications (OR, 0.59; 95% CI, 0.43-0.80; p < 0.001) and pulmonary complications. However, no differences in myocardial infarction (OR, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.52-1.12; p = 0.16), renal failure (OR, 0.74; 95% CI, 0.50-1.11; p = 0.14) and other postoperative morbidity outcomes were found.

OFF-CABG significantly reduces the incidence of postoperative cerebrovascular accidents and bleeding complications compared with ON-CABG in diabetic patients. No differences were found regarding mortality, myocardial infarction and renal failure between these two techniques. Our study suggests that OFF-CABG may be an optimal strategy for diabetic patients although adequately powered randomized trials are needed to further verify the finding.