Conventional versus minimally invasive extra-corporeal circulation in patients undergoing cardiac surgery: A randomized controlled trial (COMICS)

Gianni D Angelini*, Barnaby C Reeves, Lucy A Culliford, Rachel Maishman, Chris A Rogers, Kyriakos Anastasiadis, Polychronis Antonitsis, Helena Argiriadou, Thierry Carrel, Dorothée Keller, Andreas Liebold, Fatma Ashkaniani, Aschraf El-Essawi, Ingo Breitenbach, Clinton Lloyd, Mark Bennett, Alex Cale, Serdar Gunaydin, Eren Gunertem, Farouk OueidaIbrahim M Yassin, Cyril Serrick, John M Murkin, Vivek Rao, Marco Moscarelli, Ignazzo Condello, Prakash Punjabi, Cha Rajakaruna, Apostolos Deliopoulos, Daniel Bone, William Lansdown, Narain Moorjani, Sarah Dennis

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

13 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Introduction
The trial hypothesized that minimally invasive extra-corporeal circulation (MiECC) reduces the risk of serious adverse events (SAEs) after cardiac surgery operations requiring extra-corporeal circulation without circulatory arrest.

Methods
This is a multicentre, international randomized controlled trial across fourteen cardiac surgery centres including patients aged ≥18 and <85 years undergoing elective or urgent isolated coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), isolated aortic valve replacement (AVR) surgery, or CABG + AVR surgery. Participants were randomized to MiECC or conventional extra-corporeal circulation (CECC), stratified by centre and operation. The primary outcome was a composite of 12 post-operative SAEs up to 30 days after surgery, the risk of which MiECC was hypothesized to reduce. Secondary outcomes comprised: other SAEs; all-cause mortality; transfusion of blood products; time to discharge from intensive care and hospital; health-related quality-of-life. Analyses were performed on a modified intention-to-treat basis.

Results
The trial terminated early due to the COVID-19 pandemic; 1071 participants (896 isolated CABG, 97 isolated AVR, 69 CABG + AVR) with median age 66 years and median EuroSCORE II 1.24 were randomized (535 to MiECC, 536 to CECC). Twenty-six participants withdrew after randomization, 22 before and four after intervention. Fifty of 517 (9.7%) randomized to MiECC and 69/522 (13.2%) randomized to CECC group experienced the primary outcome (risk ratio = 0.732, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) = 0.556 to 0.962, p = 0.025). The risk of any SAE not contributing to the primary outcome was similarly reduced (risk ratio = 0.791, 95% CI 0.530 to 1.179, p = 0.250).

Conclusions
MiECC reduces the relative risk of primary outcome events by about 25%. The risk of other SAEs was similarly reduced. Because the trial terminated early without achieving the target sample size, these potential benefits of MiECC are uncertain.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)730-741
Number of pages12
JournalPerfusion
Volume40
Issue number3
Early online date4 Jun 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Apr 2025

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024.

Research Groups and Themes

  • Bristol Heart Institute
  • BTC (Bristol Trials Centre)

Keywords

  • cardiopulmonary bypass
  • randomized controlled trial
  • Coronary artery bypass grafting
  • aortic valve replacement
  • extracorporeal circulation

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