Prolonged use of a breathing tube in patients who have had coronary artery bypass graft surgery is associated with both increased mortality and morbidity. CABG is a type of heart surgery that reroutes or bypasses clogged arteries by using replacement arteries or veins taken from the chest or the leg. CABG is one of the most common operations performed in the world. In the U.S., approximately 600,000 procedures were performed in 1997. The surgery is associated with variable degrees of postoperative respiratory insufficiency, and patients sometimes require intubation.
Intubation is the passage of a breathing tube through the mouth or nose into the trachea.
Amram Cohen, M.D., FCCP, and colleagues at the Wolfson Medical Center in Israel decided to measure the impact of PI on patients who underwent surgery. These patients constituted the study group. Sixty-six other patients who underwent CABG surgery and did not need PI served as the control group. These groups were compared with one another for acute and midterm postoperative morbidity and mortality. Preoperative characteristics of all three subgroups were compared to those of the control group as well to see if there were markers or predictors of PI need.