Ah. Chen et al., EARLY POSTOPERATIVE ANGIOGRAPHIC ASSESSMENT OF RADIAL ARTERY GRAFTS USED FOR CORONARY-ARTERY BYPASS-GRAFTING, Journal of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery, 111(6), 1996, pp. 1208-1212
Despite a revival of interest in using the radial artery as an alterna
tive conduit for myocardial revascularization, little angiographic doc
umentation of early postoperative results has been presented, particul
arly in North America. Accordingly, 60 of 150 patients who underwent c
oronary artery bypass with radial arteries from November 1993 to July
1995 have had postoperative cardiac catheterization at our institution
. The patency rate of the radial artery grafts was 95.7% (90 of 94 gra
fts patent) with an average internal diameter of 2.51 mm. Four radial
artery grafts showed diffuse narrowing. The patency rate of the intern
al thoracic artery grafts was 100% with an average internal diameter o
f 2.25 mm. Three of 62 grafts demonstrated diffuse narrowing, Two of 2
4 (7.7%) saphenous vein grafts were occluded; the average internal dia
meter was 3.23 mm. The internal thoracic artery, the radial artery, an
d saphenous vein grafts were, respectively, 7.5%, 19.5%, and 53.3% lar
ger than the anastomosed native coronary arteries, Graft-dependent how
was found in 81.1% of the radial artery grafts. Conclusion: The resul
ts of this study demonstrate that the short-term patency rate of radia
l artery grafts is excellent.