[Severe chronic ischemic ventricular dysfunction. Determinants of surgical risk and long-term clinical outcome]. / Disfunción ventricular isquémica crónica severa. Determinantes del riesgo quirúrgico y del resultado clínico a largo plazo.

INTRODUCTION: In patients with chronic ischemic heart disease, a severe ventricular dysfunction is associated with a higher operative risk and to a worse late clinical outcome. However, when there is sufficient viable myocardium, surgical revascularization can improve ventricular performance and above all the functional capacity and survival of these patients. OBJECTIVES: To analyze long-term results of a large series of patients with an ejection fraction < or = 0.30 that underwent isolated coronary artery bypass surgery and to investigate factors, mainly clinical, that determined favorable clinical results: being that the patient was alive and free of incapacitating symptoms. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This series included 100 patients, 93 males and 7 females, with a mean age of 62 +/- 8 years. The predominant clinical manifestation was angina in 37, congestive heart failure in 22 and both in 41. Seventy-nine patients were in functional class III or IV, and 19 had emergency surgery. RESULTS: There were 10 in-hospital deaths, 6 of which occurred in patients who had emergency surgery. Mortality in the elective cases was 4.9%. Only age (p < 0.05), functional class (p < 0.05) and emergency surgery (p < 0.0001) were identified as independent predictors of early mortality. Actuarial survival rates after 5 and 8 years were 65 and 52% respectively. Long-term clinical outcome was considered favorable in 66 patients. We did not find any preoperative clinical variables that were predictors of the clinical outcome. Only preoperative mitral insufficiency correlated with a poor long-term clinical result. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with chronic and severe ventricular dysfunction secondary to coronary artery disease have an acceptable surgical risk when they are operated on electively, before their clinical condition deteriorates. Long-term results are satisfactory in the majority of the patients. In these types of patients clinical manifestations are of limited value in the selection process for surgical revascularization.

[Reoperations of myocardial revascularization]. / Reoperaciones de revascularización miocárdica.

UNLABELLED: Coronary by-pass grafting is a well established procedure for ameliorating ischemic coronary disease. From time to time it is necessary to re-operate these patients. The objective of our paper is to present our experience in this field. Retrospective analysis of 128 patients operated on between February 1978 and November 1996, has been analyzed. The mean age was 57.4 +/- 0.7 years. 77.2 +/- 5 months elapsed between operations. Stable angina (20.4%) or unstable angina (76.3%), myocardial infarction (48%) and congestive heart failure (17%) were the predominant clinical manifestations. RESULTS: Hospital mortality was 10.9% (14 patients) and in the follow-up there were 16 deaths (14%). Perioperative myocardial infarction was the main cause of in-hospital mortality. In the follow-up there were 4 deaths due to myocardial infarction and another 4 patients died from neoplasms. Perioperative myocardial infarction was present in 9.3% (12 patients) IN CONCLUSION: a) Re-do coronary by-pass grafting is still a good procedure for solving myocardial ischemia in spite of a higher mortality and morbidity than in the original operation. b) There is no progression in the number of patients according to our experience, probably due to better techniques and the frequent actions by an intervention cardiologist. c) The long-term results are good enough, but with a higher mortality.