Abstract
During the 3 years through December 1992, 118 cases of coronary bypass graft were performed at Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Asan Medical Center. They consisted of 80 males and 38 females with the mean age of 59. History of myocardial infarction was noted in 23 cases[20%], congestive heart failure in 11[10%], left ventricular aneurysm in 6, postinfarct VSD in 2, and mitral regurgitation in 1. The angina was stable in 13 cases, and unstable in 104 cases[89%]. Left main stem disease were 41 cases[35%], triple vessel 36[31%], double vessel 30[26%] and single vessel involvement[LAD] in 10. We performed 335 distal bypasses out of 117 cases, with single bypass in 9, double 29, triple 52, quadruple 23, and quintuple 4. Myocardial protections were cardioplegia in 29 and intermittent aortic occlusion 79 and continuous aortic perfusion 7. The ischemic time per graft was 13 minutes[intermittent aortic occlusion group] and 20 minutes [cardioplegia group] respectively, and the mean number of graft per patient is 2.85. Early mortality was 6.8% [8/117]. If we exclude the patients with LV aneurysm, the surgical mortality could be downed to 4.5% [5/111]. The causes of deaths were cardiogenic shock[6], aortic dissection[1], and neurologic complication[1]. We conclude that noncardioplegic myocardial protection may be equally beneficial or sometimes advantageous to cardioplegic technique in aortocoronary bypass graft surgery.