Conscious off pump coronary artery bypass surgery--an audit of our first 151 cases.
OBJECTIVE
An audit of our first 151 cases of conscious off pump coronary artery bypass (COPCAB) surgery with epidural anesthesia as sole anesthetic.


METHODS
Patients underwent conscious off pump coronary artery bypass (OPCAB) surgery using high thoracic epidural anesthesia. The epidural catheter was inserted on the day before the surgery.


RESULTS
There were 118 male and 33 female patients. The incision was via midsternotomy except in 3 patients. Single graft was performed in 25 patients, double in 61, triple in 46, quadruple in 19. Twenty-nine patients developed pneumothorax. Three patients required conversion to general anesthesia. In one patient cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) was instituted. There was no mortality in the group.


CONCLUSIONS
Our experience shows that conscious OPCAB surgery can be performed safely in selected patients.
Chakravarthy
Murali
M
From Wockhardt Heart Institute, Bangalore, Karnataka, India.
Jawali
Vivek
V
Manohar
Murali
M
Patil
Thimmannagowda
T
Jayaprakash
Krishnamoorthy
K
Kolar
Srinivasan
S
Das
Jayant Kumar
JK
D000767:Anesthesia, Epidural; D003243:Consciousness; D047549:Coronary Artery Bypass, Off-Pump / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay; D008297:Male; D008485:Medical Audit; D008875:Middle Aged; D018579:Patient Selection; D011031:Pneumothorax, Artificial