Endoscopic Vein Harvesting for Coronary Bypass Grafting: A Blessing or a Trojan Horse?

Table 1

Graft quality in terms of graft patency and clinical outcome.

Authors, yr	Method	N	Followup	Patency rate		Clinical outcome (EVH versus open harvest)
				%	P value
Felisky et al., 2002 [8]	retrospective	380 EVH; 340 OVH	In-hospital	—; —	—	no significant differences in rate of clinically apparent early graft failure
Allen et al., 2003 [9]	RCT	54 EVH; 58 OVH	5 yr	—; —	—	equal 5 yr event-free survival (events: death, AMI, recurrent AP)
Perrault et al., 2004 [10]	RCT, CAG	40 EVH; 40 OVH	3 m	85%; 84%	.991	—
Davis et al., 2004 [11]	retrospective, CE-CT	51 EVH; 50 OVH	3.7 yr; 0.7 yr	95%; 95%	n.s.	—
Yun et al., 2005 [12]	RCT, CAG	100 EVH; 100 OVH	6 m	68%; 70%	.584	—
Lopes et al., 2009 [5]	prospective nonrandomized, CAG	1753 EVH; 1247 OVH	3 yr	73%; 77%	<.001	associated with higher rates of death, myocardial infraction, or repeat revascularization
Ouzounian et al., 2010 [3]	prospective observational	2004 EVH; 3821 OVH	2.6 yr	—; —	—	not an independent predictor of in-hospital or midterm adverse outcome
Kirmani et al., 2010 [13]	case-control	89 EVH; 182 OVH	17 m; 38 m	—; —	—	no difference in the rates of freedom from angina, readmission or need for further antianginals

ns: not significant; EVH: endoscopic vein harvesting, OVH: open vein harvesting, CAG: coronary angiogram, RCT: randomized controlled trial; AMI: acute myocardial infarction; AP: angina pectoris; CE-CT: contrast-enhanced CT.