Is anticoagulation management more significant for patients undergoing off-pump bypass than for those after CABG?

doi:10.1510/icvts.2007.169086B Actually, this survey confirms that there is a great variation as far as the strategy for OPCAB operations is concerned between several Cardiothoracic Departments w1x. As a result, the observed inhomogeneous practice regarding anticoagulation protocols, antiplatelet therapy, use of antifibrinolytics and the further lack of guidelines for OPCAB reflects the difficulty of even multi-center trials to lead to reliable conclusions w2x. Besides, the fact that a cell-server being a miniature of CPB – is used by 70 % of surgeons may explain the report by several studies of comparable results between CABG and OPCAB concerning the incidence of stroke, SIRS, neuro-cognitive disorders, haemorrhage etc. w3x. The fact that 34 % of surgeons consider OPCAB as an independent risk factor for the early occlusion of grafts w1x, indicates that this surgical method has not yet been proved reliable. Also, it would be interesting to inform us which was the surgical experience (operations/year) of these surgeons. Moreover, the fact that two-thirds (67%) of surgeon