No-touch versus conventional vein in coronary artery bypass grafting: three year follow-up of multicentre randomised PATENCY trial

To assess the three year outcomes of the no-touch vein harvesting technique in coronary artery bypass grafting surgery compared with the conventional approach. Three year extended follow-up of the randomised PATENCY (graft patency between the no-touch vein harvesting technique and conventional approach in coronary artery bypass graft surgery) trial. Seven cardiac surgery centres in China; enrolment between April 2017 and June 2019. 2655 participants aged 18 and older undergoing isolated coronary artery bypass grafting surgery. Patients were randomly assigned 1:1 to the no-touch vein harvesting technique group or the conventional approach group during surgery and followed up. Vein graft occlusion (based on computed tomography angiography) at three years. Mean age of participants was 61 years (standard deviation ±8 years) and 22% were women. 99.4% (2621) attended the three year follow-up visit, while 86.5% (2281) received computed tomography angiography. At three years, the no-touch group showed a significantly lower vein graft occlusion rate (5.7% v 9.0%, P<0.001) than the conventional group (odds ratio 0.62, 95% confidence interval 0.48 to 0.80), with absolute risk difference of -3.2% (95% confidence interval -5.0% to -1.4%). The intention-to-treat analysis, including all 2655 randomised patients with multiple imputations for missing data, showed consistent findings, with occlusion rates of 6.1% in the no-touch group versus 9.3% in the conventional group (odds ratio 0.63, 95% confidence interval 0.51 to 0.81; absolute risk difference-3.1%, 95% confidence interval -4.9% to -1.4%; P<0.001). These results confirm the robustness of the no-touch technique in reducing vein graft occlusion. The no-touch technique consistently and robustly reduced the risk of vein graft occlusion and several cardiac events by one third to one half within three years after coronary artery bypass grafting surgery. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03126409.