A randomized, prospective study.
Sixty patients scheduled for elective coronary artery bypass grafting with or without aortic valve replacement.
A university hospital.
Patients were assigned randomly to receive either remifentanil or sufentanil combined with propofol.
Patients with ejection fraction<0.3, myocardial infarction within the last 4 weeks, diabetes, and severe pulmonary or arterial hypertension were excluded. The primary outcome variables were ventilation time and time to eligibility of discharge from the cardiac recovery unit. Secondary outcomes were actual LOS in the cardiac recovery unit and quality of recovery. The groups were comparable in selected demographics and perioperative parameters. There were no differences in ventilation time or eligible ICU discharge time between the groups. Remifentanil patients received more morphine than did the sufentanil patients during recovery (20 mg v 10 mg; p = 0.040). No difference was found in pharmacologic support or use of a pacemaker.
In a fast-track protocol, remifentanil did not seem to be superior to a standard moderate- to high-dose sufentanil regimen.