Femorofemoral bypass: a valuable procedure.
Twenty-seven femorofemoral bypasses were performed in 25 patients with severe arteriosclerosis obliterans affecting the iliofemoral arteries. The series comprised 16 men and 9 women, aged 51 to 80 years. Nineteen patients were poor-risk cases with severe cardiorespiratory disease. Twenty-one patients had undergone vascular procedures previously without success. The operation was carried out: (a) as the primary procedure for very poor-risk patients in an attempt to salvage a limb, (b) to deal with unilateral limb occlusion of an aortoiliac--femoral prosthesis, or (c) as management of infected prosthetic grafts. Fourteen Dacron grafts and 13 saphenous veins were used for the bypasses. There were no operative deaths. Twenty-two patients were clinically improved, two required amputation later and one patient was lost to follow-up. Four patients, including three with preexisting graft infection, had wound infections that cleared with drainage and antibiotics. No other major complications occurred in this group of poor-risk patients. Femorofemoral bypass is safe and provides the surgeon with a useful method of revascularizing the limbs of selected patients.
D000368:Aged; D001162:Arteriosclerosis Obliterans / Q000601:surgery*; D001807:Blood Vessel Prosthesis; D005260:Female; D005263:Femoral Artery / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D007083:Iliac Artery / Q000601:surgery*; D007866:Leg / Q000098:blood supply; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012306:Risk; D012501:Saphenous Vein / Q000637:transplantation; D013530:Surgical Wound Infection / Q000150:complications; D014182:Transplantation, Autologous