Multi-vessel coronary artery grafting: analyzing the minimally invasive approach and its safety

At our institution, we perform off-pump coronary artery bypass (OPCAB) as a standard procedure. Moreover, patients with favorable coronary anatomy and condition are selected for minimally invasive cardiac surgery (MICS)-OPCAB. We retrospectively compared early outcomes, focusing on safety, between MICS-OPCAB and conventional off-pump techniques for multivessel coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). From August 2017 to September 2022, 1,220 patients underwent multivessel coronary artery grafting at our institution. They were divided into the MICS-OPCAB group (MICS group = 163 patients) and the conventional OPCAB group (MS group = 1057 patients). Propensity score matching (1 : 1 ratio) was applied to the MICS-OPCAB and MS groups (149 patients per group) based on 23 preoperative clinical characteristics. After matching, there were no significant differences in preoperative characteristics between the groups. The MICS group had a lower total graft number (2.3 ± 0.6 vs. 2.9 ± 0.8,