ATRESIA OF INTERNAL THORACIC ARTERY GRAFTS FOLLOWING PLACEMENT TO NONCRITICALLY OBSTRUCTED VESSELS

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 ob structed vessel, The segment anastomosed to the severely narrowed port ion of the vessel functioned normally and approximated the target vess el size. (C) 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.