Anaortic off-pump versus clampless off-pump using the PAS-Port device versus conventional coronary artery bypass grafting: mid-term results from a matched propensity score analysis of 5422 unselected patients

Abstract OBJECTIVES Meta-analyses from observational and randomized studies have demonstrated benefits of off-pump surgery for hard and surrogate endpoints. In some of them, increased re-revascularization was noted in the off-pump groups, which could impact their long-term survival. Therefore, we analyzed the course of all patients undergoing isolated coronary surgery regarding the major cardiac and cerebrovascular event (MACCE) criteria. METHODS A prospective register was taken from a high-volume off-pump center recording all anaortic off-pump (ANA), clampless off-pump (PAS-Port) and conventional (CONV) coronary artery bypass operations between July 2009 and June 2015. Propensity Score Matching was performed based on 28 preoperative risk variables. RESULTS We identified 935 triplets (N = 2805). Compared with CONV, in-hospital mortality of both the ANA group (OR for ANA [95% CI] 0.25 [0.06; 0.83], P = 0.021), and the PAS-Port group was lower (OR for PAS-Port [95% CI] 0.50 [0.17; 1.32], P = 0.17). In the mid-term follow-up there were no significant differences between the groups regarding mortality (HR for ANA [95%-CI] 0.83 [0.55–1.26], P = 0.38; HR for PAS-Port [95%-CI] 1.06 [0.70–1.59], P = 0.79), incidence of stroke (HR for ANA 0.81 [0.43–1.53], P = 0.52; HR for PAS-Port 0.78 [0.41–1.50], P = 0.46), myocardial infarction (HR for ANA 0.53 [0.22–1.31], P = 0.17; HR for PAS-Port 0.78 [0.37–1.66], P = 0.52) or re-revascularization rate (HR for ANA 0.99 [0.67–1.44], P = 0.94; HR for PAS-Port 0.95 [0.65–1.38], P = 0.77). CONCLUSIONS Both off-pump clampless techniques were associated with lower in-hospital mortality compared with conventional CABG. The mid-term course showed no difference with regard to the MACCE criteria between anaortic off-pump, clampless off-pump using PAS-Port and conventional CABG.