Coronary-coronary free internal thoracic artery graft on a single, distal, left anterior descending artery lesion.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Dusko Nezić.
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Off-pump coronary artery bypass surgery (OPCAB) has changed the approach to contemporary coronary surgery. Development of new surgical devices and techniques has reduced morbidity and mortality during off-pump surgery. From March 2000-April 2002, a total of 136 patients underwent open heart surgery using off-pump technique and fast-track anesthesia at Dedinje Cardiovascular Institute. Octopus Medtronic coronary stabilizer was used for stabilization of targeted vessel. Arterial grafts were used 169 times and saphenous vein 69 times. Average number of anastomoses was 1,830,73 per patient. One patient (0.74%) died. Three patients (2.21%) underwent surgery revision due to postoperative bleeding and one (0.74%) because of graft dysfunction. Perioperative myocardial infarction was registered 2 times (1.47%), pneumothorax 3 times (2.21%), postoperative arrhythmias 11 times (8.09%), transitory ischemic attack once (0.74%) and deep wound infection once (0.74%). Twelve patients (8.82%) required prolonged inotropic support. Angiographies early revealed patent grafts in 8 patients (5.88%). OPCAB is a safe and effective alternative approach to coronary artery revascularization. Use of coronary stabilizer has improved the safety and quality of OPCAB surgery.
INTRODUCTION: Nowadays, coronary-coronary bypass grafting (CCBG) has been applied in patients with heavily calcified ascending aorta or due to lack of graft material. CASE REPORT: We describe a case in which the patient's large left anterior descending (LAD) coronary artery, running well over the cardiac apex, presented with proximal and distal stenosis. Although the pedicled left internal thoracic artery (ITA) graft is sometimes too short for sequential bypass in cases of distal stenosis of the LAD coronary artery, we used a free, short segment of the pedicled left ITA for coronary-coronary bypass grafting. The in situ remnant of the left pedicled ITA was used to bypass the proximal LAD stenosis. The patient's postoperative course was uneventful. Predischarge angiogram (on the 9th postoperative day) showed an in situ left ITA graft as well as afree coronarycoronary ITA graft. The patient had a regularfollow-up after 3 months, and was classified as New York Heart Association (NYHA) class I. DISCUSSION: Primarily used in aorto-coronary bypass surgery (termino-terminal interposition of the saphenous vein between two parts of a resected coronary artery), CCBG was revised latter on, and from hemodynamic point of view the physiologic restoration of coronary blood flow has been confirmed CCBG might be an attractive approach for bypassing distal lesions of large coronary arteries (combined with arterial or venous grafting of targeted arteries, if proximal stenoses are also present). The proximal remnant of ITA can be used as an in situ or free graft.
Heavily calcified ascending aorta significantly increased morbidity and lethality during open-heart surgery. Cannulation and clamping (partial or total) of severely atherosclerotic ascending aorta can easily cause damage and rupture of aortic wall, with consequential distal (often fatal) embolization with atheromatous debris (brain, myocardium). From June 1998. until June 2000, 11 of 2,136 (0.5%) patients who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting were with the severe atheromatous ascending aorta. The site of cannulation was in the aortic arch in three patients (aorta was occluded with Foley catheter in one case, and single clamp technique was used in the other two cases). The femoral artery was the cannulation site in other five cases. Profound hypothermia, ventricular fibrillation, and circulatory arrest, with no cross-clamping or cardioplegia, were used in three patients. Two patients were operated on with extracorporeal circulation, one in normothermia, on the beating heart, the other in moderate hypothermia, on fibrillating heart. In three patients myocardial revascularization was performed on the beating heart, in normothermia, without extracorporeal circulation. Postoperative course was uneventful in all 11 patients. Neither atheroembolism in the peripheral organs, nor atheroembolism of the extremities occurred. The proposed surgical approaches have the potential to reduce the prevalence of stroke and systemic embolization associated with coronary artery bypass grafting in patients with heavily calcified ascending aorta. This result was achieved due to the applied modifications of standard cardiosurgical technique.