RE-DO CORONARY-ARTERY BYPASS-GRAFTING

Coronary by-pass grafting is a well established procedure for ameliora ting ischemic coronary disease. From time to time it is necessary to r e-operate these patients. The objective of our paper is to present our experience in this field. Retrospective analysis of 128 patients oper ated on between February 1978 and November 1996, has been analyzed. Th e mean age was 57.4 +/- 0.7 years. 77.2 +/- 5 months elapsed between o perations. Stable angina (20.4%) or unstable angina (76.3%), myocardia l infarction (48%) and congestive heart failure (17%) were the predomi nant clinical manifestations. Results. Hospital mortality was 10.9% (1 4 patients) and in the follow-up there were 16 deaths (14%). Periopera tive myocardial infarction was the main cause of in-hospital mortality . In the followup there were 4 deaths due to myocardial infarction and another 4 patients died from neoplasms. Perioperative myocardial infa rction was present in 9.3% (12 patients) In conclusion: a) Re-do coron ary by-pass grafting is still a good procedure for solving myocardial ischemia in spite of a higher mortality and morbidity than in the orig inal operation, b) There is no progression in the number of patients a ccording to our experience, probably due to better techniques and the frequent actions by an intervention cardiologist. c) The long-term res ults are good enough, but with a higher mortality.