Clinical and angiographic experience with intraoperative transluminal balloon-catheter dilatation and coronary artery bypass graft surgery.

Between April, 1980 and October, 1983, 40 patients with chronic stable angina pectoris underwent intraoperative transluminal balloon-catheter dilatation and coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. The main indication for this combined procedure was diffuse symptomatic coronary artery disease with at least one coronary artery having two or more areas of narrowing. Intraoperative dilatation was performed upon 42 coronary arteries involving 57 narrowed arterial segments where dilatation was attempted. The balloon-tipped catheter could not be passed through two stenotic sites. There was no documented perforation but unrecognized intimal injury was observed in two patients at postoperative catheterization. There was one perioperative myocardial infarction, one operative death and 97% early relief of angina pectoris. In 25 distal arterial narrowings that were studied angiographically in the early postoperative period (mean 10 days), 15 (60%) were unchanged, 2 (8%) were worse and 8 (32%) were improved compared to the preoperative angiogram. Patients with discrete narrowings did better than those who had balloon dilatation for diffuse narrowings; 49% of the former as compared to 17% of the latter had angiographic evidence for improvement. During the follow-up period (mean 30 months), three patients developed recurrent angina pectoris and one died of congestive heart failure. Thirteen distal arterial narrowings were studied angiographically late postoperatively (mean 12 months). In these 13 areas, 6 (46%) were unchanged, 3 (23%) were worse and 4 (31%) were improved compared to preoperative angiograms. Additionally, 10 arterial narrowings were observed angiographically, both early and late postoperatively. Nine of these serially observed segments remained unchanged while one became worse.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)