The surgical management of allograft coronary disease: a paradigm shift.
The surgical options for heart transplant recipients who develop obstructive coronary artery disease in their allograft have historically been limited to retransplantation. Given the worse outcome in recipients of second grafts, often caused by recurrence of coronary disease, coupled with the significant increase in the number of patients on the transplantation waiting lists, has made retransplantation a limited option. However, as heart transplant recipients continue to live longer, there are an increasing number of patients who develop allograft coronary disease. Coronary bypass surgery has not been offered to these patients because of numerous pathology reports describing uniform involvement of the coronary vessel from its origin to the distal intramural branches, thereby eliminating any reasonable runoff vascular bed to handle increased flow that might be delivered with bypass conduits. However, new diagnostic techniques such as measurement of coronary flow reserve by Doppler flow wire can define the physiological vasodilating capacity or reserve which, if normal, should allow conventional bypass surgery if adequate target epicardial vessels are present. This approach would allow a more reasonable alternative to many patients who otherwise would die of this disease without any intervention. Other alternatives such as transmyocardial laser revascularization are discussed.