Incidence of atrial fibrillation after off-pump versus on-pump coronary artery bypass grafting: A meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials and propensity score matching trials.

The association between atrial fibrillation (AF) after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) and the surgical techniques selected has been extensively reported. However, no consistent results were obtained. In the present study, a meta-analysis was conducted by searching the electronic databases PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane to identify the association of post-CABG AF with on-pump (conventional CABG, cCABG) or off-pump CABG (OPCABG). Outcomes from randomized clinical trials (RCTs) and propensity score matching (PSM) trials were pooled by using the fixed-effect or the random-effect modeling method, and verified by the quality-effect modeling method. There were 35 studies with 36 independent reports that met the inclusion criteria and were eventually included in our meta-analysis. The total odds ratio (OR) of the incidence of post-CABG AF between OPCABG and cCABG was 0.80 (95% CI 0.71-0.91). The 25 randomized clinical trials (RCTs) had an OR of 0.69 (95% CI 0.56-0.86), while the OR of the 11 PSM trials was 0.88 (95% CI 0.77-1.00). Twenty-six studies involving the patients at a mean age no more than 65 years showed an OR of 0.76 (95% CI 0.64-0.90), whereas 10 studies with patients greater than 65 years old showed an OR of 0.90 (95% CI 0.78-1.05). The results of this meta-analysis suggest that OPCAB surgery may reduce the incidence of post-CABG AF when compared to cCABG and that younger patients may benefit more from OPCAB and have a lower incidence of post-CABG AF.