The following abstracts were presented at the meeting of the Association of Cardiothoracic Anaesthetists in Cambridge, June 2009 A survey of post-sternotomy chronic pain following cardiac surgery

Coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) is a common surgical procedure with over 19 000 cases carried out in the UK in 2006 ⁄ 07. Persistent chest wall pain following cardiac surgery was termed Post-CABG Pain Syndrome (PCPS) in 1989 [1]. It has a reported incidence of up to 56% and is recognised as an important postoperative complication [2]. Currently PCPS is not considered in our patients’ consent procedure. We undertook a survey of 100 CABG patients in order to determine the incidence of PCPS in our population.