Meta-analysis on the effect of off-pump coronary bypass surgery

Objective: To assess the effect of conventional coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) compared to the off-pump procedure (OPCAB). Methods: Based on randomised trials found in PubMed and Science Citation Index, an overall odds ratio and 95% confidence interval was calculated for the combined endpoint of mortality, stroke and myocardial infarction. Results: The 18 randomised trials included 1584 patients (783 OPCAB, 801 CABG). The odds ratio was 0.73 (95% CI=0.26; 2.04) at 2-week post-surgery, 0.75 (0.39; 1.42) at 1-month post-surgery, 0.55 (0.28; 1.08) at 3-month post-surgery, and 0.66 (0.38; 1.15) at 1-year post-surgery. Conclusions: The outcome of this meta-analysis shows favourable results for OPCAB for the combined endpoint of mortality, stroke and myocardial infarction at short and long term follow-up. However, none of the risk reductions reach statistical significance at the conventional level. Based on our results OPCAB appears to be equivalent to CABG.