Methods: Between September 1993 and December 1995, a total of 162 patients who underwent off-pump CABG by the same two surgeons at a single center, followed by angiography were retrospectively analyzed.

Results: The mean time from surgery to angiography was 9.8±1.2 years (range, 7.1 to 12.6 years). The overall patency rate of the left internal mammary artery graft was 95.57% and 46.03% in saphenous vein grafts (SVG). During follow-up, 27 patients (16.67%) underwent percutaneous coronary intervention. The procedure was performed due to severe stenosis in the SVG in eight of them and due to severe lesion formation in native coronary artery in the others. Five patients underwent repeated CABG. There was no significant association between pre-, intra-, and postoperative variables and graft patency.

Conclusion: Off-pump CABG technique, in contrast to the conventional bypass, has well-known advantages such as lower transfusion of blood and blood products, shortened length of intensive care unit and hospital stay, reduced cost, and lower morbidity and mortality. Our very long-term angiographic follow-up study showed that off-pump CABG is as reliable as conventional bypass procedure with excellent outcome and patency particularly in the left anterior descending coronary artery. Therefore, off-pump CABG technique should be the primary procedure of choice in selected patients.