The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, Vol 30, 336-341, Copyright © 1980 by The Society of Thoracic Surgeons
Further evaluation of the circular sequential vein graft technique of coronary artery bypass
JC Cleveland, IM Lebenson, RJ Twohey, JG Ellis, DB Nelson, RJ Suchor, AA Heckman Jr, DW Morse and JR Dague
Our study reports a series of circular sequential vein grafts in 21
patients with highly symptomatic triple-vessel coronary artery disease.
Four or more distal anastomoses were done in each patient. Thirteen of the
patients were restudied, and the results revealed a 97% patency rate for
distal anastomoses (58 out of 60) at 4 to 13 months after operation. One
patient died 2 months after operation. Postmortem examination revealed a
desmoplastic, fibrotic reaction at the proximal anastomosis of the circular
graft, with 3 of 4 distal anastomoses patent. Twenty of the 21 patients in
this series are now alive with asymptomatic cardiac status 14 to 22 months
after operation. The finding by Grondin and associates [1] of increased
patency rate with this technique for distal anastomoses is confirmed. The
circular sequential vein graft represents a particularly advantageous
technique for patients in whom 4 to 6 distal anastomoses are needed for
complete revascularization and in whom one or more vessels have limited
runoff. The obvious disadvantage of this technique is that all distal
anastomoses depend on a single proximal anastomosis.