Abstract
During the period from September 1989 through December 1992, 118 cases of coronary arterial bypass graft were performed at Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Asan Medical Center. Twenty-one of these had history of recent or remote percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty. They consisted of 13 males[age,58.7 + 5.4 years] and 8 females[age, 63.6 + 2.8years] with the mean age of 60.6. History of old myocardial infarction was noted in 24%[5/21] of the patients and congestive heart failure in 2 cases. The angina by type of presentation is unstable in all of the patients. The patterns of involvement of coronary arterial disease were left main disease[1], single vessel disease[5], double vessel involvement[10], and triple vessel involvement[5]. We performed 4 cases of single bypasses, 7 cases of double, 8 cases of triple, and 2 cases of quadruple bypasses. Total of 51 grafts[LIMA:12, RSVG:39] were inserted in 21 cases with average of 2.4 grafts per patient. The methods of myocardial protection were cold blood cardioplegia[8 cases], intermittent aortic occlusion[11], and continuous coronary perfusion with local coronary sharing[2]. There were no operative or late death. The only cardiac complication was 1 case of low cardiac output required IABP. The other complications were 1 case of sternal wound infection and 1 case of postoperative bleeding required reoperation. And there was no case of perioperative myocardial infarction. Postoperatively, 3 cases of recurrent angina were detected at 5, 7, and 18months after surgery. One of them was managed successfully with repeat PTCA[who was recurred 18 months postoperatively], and the other two with medication. I conclude that we can approach the patients more aggressively with PTCA, because of our acceptable operative risks.