Bypass surgery safer using heart-lung pump - study

* Study finds fewer deaths after heart surgery using pump

* Off-pump surgery was said to cut complications

* Access to parts of heart different in the two techniques

By Gene Emery

BOSTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Allowing the heart to keep beating during coronary bypass surgery is riskier than stopping the heart and using a heart-lung machine to keep the patient alive, researchers reported on Wednesday.

Doctors at 18 Veterans Affairs medical centers found that fewer bypass grafts were completed and the one-year risk of heart attack, death, or further heart surgery was increased if surgeons worked on a heart that remained beating.

The technique, involving mechanical heart stabilizers manufactured by companies such as Medtronic Inc (MDT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Guidant Corporation, owned by Boston Scientific (BSX.N: Quote, Profile, Research), is used in about 20 percent of U.S. heart bypass operations.

"I would find myself hard pressed to justify it for someone who is at moderate or somewhat-high risk. I don't think the trade-off is worth it myself," Dr. Frederick Grover of the University of Colorado Denver, who worked on the study, said in a telephone interview.

The researchers, who studied 2,203 patients, said that a year after surgery, heart-related deaths had occurred in 2.7 percent of the off-pump patients, compared with 1.3 percent of those hooked to the heart-lung machine.