Impact of the Presence of Chronic Total Occlusions on the Survival of Patients Treated with Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting.

Although chronic total occlusions (CTO) are a common finding in patients treated with coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), it is still not clear how their presence impacts the long-term outcomes achieved with surgery. We aimed to investigate the impact of CTO on the long-term results of patients with coronary artery disease who underwent CABG. Patients from 2005 to 2023 operated on at the University Hospital Freiburg-Bad Krozingen were analyzed. The primary outcome was all-cause mortality after 3-, 5-, and 10 years. The secondary outcome was the need for coronary reintervention in the follow-up period. Propensity score matching and multivariable Cox regression were performed, and Kaplan-Meier curves were used to graphically display the outcomes for the two groups. Of the 3424 patients included in the analysis, 1784 (52%) were categorized as CTO and 1640 (48%) were categorized as no-CTO. After propensity scoring, 1232 pairs were successfully matched. The 3-, 5-, and 10-year all-cause mortality was significantly higher in patients with CTO (p = 0.028; p < 0.001; p < 0.001). The need for coronary reintervention after 3-, 5-, and 10 years was comparable in both groups. In addition, multivariable Cox Regression showed that CTO presence (HR 1.220, 95% CI 1.047-1.420, p = 0.010) was an independent predictor of 10-year mortality.