title: Atresia of internal thoracic artery grafts following placement to noncritically obstructed vessels.
abstract: Four patients postcoronary bypass surgery, utilizing the left internal thoracic artery as a jump graft, were found to have atresia of either the proximal segment (2 patients) or the distal interposition segment (2 patients) of this graft. In all 4 cases the atretic portion of the graft was the segment that had been anastomosed to a noncritically obstructed vessel. The segment anastomosed to the severely narrowed portion of the vessel functioned normally and approximated the target vessel size.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Harper Hospital/Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, Michigan, USA.
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Glazier
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Giri
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Primiano
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003251:Constriction, Pathologic; D017023:Coronary Angiography; D001026:Coronary Artery Bypass / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011183:Postoperative Complications; D013895:Thoracic Arteries / Q000473:pathology / Q000637:transplantation*