Use of arterial grafts for coronary revascularization

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance and the quality of arterial grafts for coronary artery bypass grafting at The Heart Institute of Japan, Tokyo Women’s Medical University.Patients and Methods: From January 1970 to March 1998, 2987 arterial grafts, including left and right internal thoracic arteries, gastroepiploic artery, radial artery and inferior epigastric artery, were used in 1673 patients. In the same period, 1225 saphenous vein grafts were used. Early graft patency was angiographically determined. Also, histological evaluation of operative specimens and preoperative angiographic evaluation of arterial grafts were performed.Results: The total number of hospital deaths was 38 (2.3%). Of 4212 grafts, 3919 grafts (93%) were evaluated angiographically and 3714 of 3919 grafts were patent (94.8%). The patency rate of internal thoracic artery was better than that of gastroepiploic artery (p < 0.0001), radial artery (p = 0.0005) and saphenous vein grafts (p < 0.0001). However, the patency rate of gastroepiploic artery was better than that of saphenous vein grafts (p = 0.04), while no significant difference was detected between gastroepiploic artery and rdial artery. Only one internal thoracic artery specimen obtained at surgery showed atherosclerotic change, but all gastroepiploic artery specimens had moderate to severe atherosclerotic changes with CD68-positive cell infiltration. Only one patient’s left internal thoracic artery out of 200 was not angiographically useable as a conduit, while multiple stenotic lesions in gastroepiploic artery were observed.Conclusions: In the graft selection for CABG, the primary choice is internal thoracic artery and the secondary choice is right internal thoracic artery, from the standpoint of histological and angiographic evaluation, gastroepiploic artery and/or radial artery, depending on the target anastomotic site, degree of stenosis, and in situ or free use is the third choice.