Descriptive Analysis of Endoscopic versus Traditional Open Vein Harvest Technique for Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery: Report of 1974 Cases

Background: Coronary artery disease (CAD) is one of the most common types of heart disease and the leading cause of death in the United States in both men and women. Coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) has been used for patients with significant CAD. Successful CABG depends on many factors and one of them is the choice of graft conduit. The aim of this study is to report a descriptive analysis of endoscopic (EVH) versus traditional open vein harvest (OVH) technique for CABG from 2010 to 2011 in Mashhad, northeast of Iran. Methods and Materials: This is a cross-sectional study conducted on 1974 CABG operations in Javad-al-Aeme Hospital in Mashhad, from January 2010 to July 2011. Totally, 989 patients underwent the traditional OVH and the other 985 patients had the EVH. Data analysis (including demographical and operational) in addition to parametric and nonparametric tests were undertaken using the SPSS 16 software. A P value < 0.05 was regarded as statistically significant. Results: Mean age of the EVH group was 62.1±3.5 years in comparison with 64.2±3.9 years in the OVH group, which means no significant difference was revealed between the two groups. A significant difference between the groups in hospital stay days was detected, with the EVH and OVH groups being 5.6±1.2 and 6.5±1.8 days, respectively (P=0.041). Patientʹs Pain was measured by the use of a visual analog scale (VAS); we found significant differences between the groups at 2nd day, 5th day, and 40th day after CABG (P < 0.05). We also found a noticeable difference in cosmetic satisfaction and less wound complication in the EVH group in comparison with the OVH group (P < 0.05). Conclusions: In this study, we found that EVH brings fewer postoperative wound complications and less postoperative pain and could reduce analgesic usage after the operation. It also results in shorter hospital stay and of course better cosmetic outcome in the patientʹs view.