Revascularisation, periprocedural events and survival – and the survival of the randomised controlled trial

The Surgical Treatment for Ischemic Heart Failure (STICH) randomised controlled trial (RCT) found that serious postoperative complications occurred in nearly one-quarter of patients who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) for ischaemic cardiomyopathy and that these events were associated with 30-day mortality1. There was a clear gradation demonstrated between the number of complications that occurred and a patient’s survival: patients with no complications had <1% mortality, those with 1 complication had 7% mortality, those with 2 had 31% mortality, those with 3 had 33% mortality, and those with ≥4 complications had 59% mortality at 30 days. While there are published data on the occurrence and prognostic ...