Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty of radial artery grafts

The radial artery is being used with increasing frequency to replace the sa phenous vein as a coronary artery bypass graft, in the belief that it will provide improved long-term patency. Several centers have confirmed that the early results of surgery using the radial artery seem to be better than th ose obtained with saphenous grafts. Despite these apparent gains, early fai lure of the radial artery graft can occur and is frequently associated with symptomatic myocardial ischemia, Percutaneous angioplasty is an alternativ e to reoperation to treat lesions occurring on radial artery grafts. We rep ort on 4 patients who underwent angioplasty of radial artery grafts. Cathet . Cardiovasc. Diagn. 45:400-404, 1998. (C) 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.