Repair of damaged internal mammary artery

The use of the internal mammary artery (IMA) in coronary artery bypass graft surgery is an independent predictor of late survival in all subsets of patients and should not be denied to any subgroup. Therefore damage to the IMA during harvesting is a catastrophic complication after which the graft is usually discarded. We present here a simple and safe technique for repair of a damaged left IMA that allowed its rescue for grafting to the left anterior descending artery.