Angiographic demonstration of no-flow anatomical patency of internal thoracic-coronary artery bypass grafts.
To clarify the no-flow situation of the stringlike internal thoracic artery graft, we angiographically examined such grafts by temporarily occluding the recipient coronary artery with a percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty balloon and were able to reveal anatomical patency of the internal thoracic artery graft in 2 patients 1 year and 3 years after the operations. Thus, there is a possibility that internal thoracic artery grafts may continuously maintain anatomical patency even under no-flow situations just like nonfunctioning collateral vessels and may function properly later as a graft when the native coronary flow decreases. Also, this angiographic technique can be a new method for detecting anatomical patency of no-flow and functionally closed internal thoracic artery grafts.
Kitamura
S
S
Department of Surgery III, Nara Medical College, Japan.
Kawachi
K
K
Seki
T
T
Sawabata
N
N
Morita
R
R
Kawata
T
T
D000714:Anastomosis, Surgical; D015906:Angioplasty, Balloon, Coronary; D017023:Coronary Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D001026:Coronary Artery Bypass; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013895:Thoracic Arteries / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000637:transplantation*; D014654:Vascular Patency