Original articlesPredictors of atrial fibrillation after off-pump coronary artery bypass graft surgery
Section snippets
Methods
This was a prospective study enrolling 160 patients undergoing elective CABG with the off-pump technique at IRCCS San Raffaele Hospital of Milan. Patients were not included in other trials and represented 47% of all CABG performed at the institution during the study period. After institutional review board approval, data were prospectively obtained for an 8-month period (May 2001-January 2002). Individual informed consent was obtained from all participants. All subjects were >18 years old,
Results
AF occurred in 33 patients, representing 20.6% of the overall population. There was 1 hospital death from acute right ventricular failure. Demographic data and perioperative characteristics were compared for the patients who developed postoperative AF and for those who remained in sinus rhythm (Table 1) with the appropriate univariate p values; age (p = 0.01), redo surgery (p = 0.006), preoperative Ca channel blockers (p = 0.05), intraoperative use of nitrates (p = 0.04), and postoperative
Discussion
This study confirms that the incidence of postoperative AF after CABG is still high even when a beating-heart technique is used,5, 6, 7, 8 occurring in 20.6% of the patients. These data are in accordance to previous reports.1, 3, 9 AF is predicted by age, revascularization of the ramus medianus, and reoperation. The originality of this study is due to the fact that the authors included in the data collection many anesthetic variables (that showed no correlation with the outcome of interest) and
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Gigliola Antonioli, RN, Isabella Ronco, RN, and Monica Lischio, RN, for their collaboration.
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