Changing incidence, type, and natural history of conduction defects after coronary artery bypass grafting.

Background: Cardiac conduction defects occur after cardiac surgery. We hypothesized that population aging and increased use of beta-blockers would increase the incidence of new conduction defects after coronary surgery.

Methods: We examined the medical records of 800 coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) patients (400 from 1991 and 400 from 2001).