Coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) is a well established treatment modality for patients with coronary artery disease. For 30 years now CABG operations have been performed with the help of the heart lung machine (Cardiopulmonary bypass). However, the heart lung machine is believed to be responsible for many of the side effects and complications seen in patients following CABG surgery. The organs most commonly affected are the brain, blood constituents, lungs and kidneys.

In the last few years, stabilising devices have been developed that allow CABG operations to be performed safely without the use of the heart lung machine. Our hypothesis was that CABG done without the heart lung machine may be better tolerated by patients resulting in lower morbidity, increased functional outcome and shorter hospital length of stay.

Enrolment into the trial was from 1998 to 2003 and included 300 patients. The last patient was enrolled in June of 2003. The initial results from the study suggest that excellent results can be obtained with both techniques and contrary to others no advantages could be demonstrated in in-hospital outcomes of patients performed without cardiopulmonary bypass (Legare et al. Circulation 2005).