Combined Myocardial Bridge and Coronary Vessel Disease Requiring Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting and Myotomy of the Myocardial Bridge.

ABSTRACT

Myocardial bridging (MB) describes a band of myocardium that covers the epicardial surface of the coronary artery. This band can vary both in thickness and distance to which it covers the artery. It is broadly classified as superficial or deep, depending on the thickness of the covering muscle layer. It can be asymptomatic, or it could present with different complications. Reported complications have included ischemia and acute coronary syndromes, coronary spasm, ventricular septal rupture, and arrhythmias. MB is most commonly found in the middle segment of the left anterior descending (LAD) coronary artery. There is controversy with regard to therapy for symptomatic patients who are refractory to medical management. Percutaneous coronary intervention and surgical myotomy (unroofing) have been proposed; yet, each one has its pros and cons. MB can be associated with the development of atherosclerosis proximal to the MB segment in the involved coronary artery, and patients can present having both pathologies. We present a case series of six patients with atherosclerotic coronary lesions requiring coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) with an accidental perioperative finding of MB, which required myotomy.