How often does a person have a heart attack after having cabg?

Depends: 1 - how good was the bypassing? 2 - more importantly, your risk factors need to be completely controlled. You must have had a least two. 3 - david letterman had CABG and is doing fine. In other words, discuss your risk factors with your doc and have regular follow ups.

Low: Usually before. But early on some other vessels may block or a graft can fail. Sometimes by ekg after surgery some old infarcts become more apparent. Later on more disease can occur.

Occasionally: The risk of a true mi after cardiac surgery varies from 3 to 30% depending on the criteria used to measure it. Typically 8-10% is quoted with 2-3% being clinically significant.