Context

The efficacy of coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) in patients with ischaemic cardiomyopathy with low ejection fraction has long been controversial. However, few studies were available that compared the outcomes after CABG with medical therapy in those patients. These studies demonstrated long-term survival benefit of CABG compared with medical therapy alone. However, most of them were performed more than 40 years ago with small sample size before establishing current guideline-based medical therapy.1–3 Recently, the Surgical Treatment for Ischemic Heart Failure (STICH) study investigated whether CABG plus guideline-based medical therapy for ischaemic cardiomyopathy would improve survival compared with medical therapy alone.4 ,5 As a result, the STICH investigators reported that there was no significant difference between …