Patency of the saphenous vein conduit anastomosed to the aortic dacron graft.

AIM: The medium term patency rate of proximal saphenous vein conduit anastomosed onto the aortic dacron graft in patients was investigated. METHODS: Forty-eight patients who underwent aortic graft replacement and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) in our clinic between February 2004 and December 2011 were included in the study. The study was designed as two phases. In the first phase, records of the patients who have undergone ascending aorta replacement with concomitant CABG were scanned retrospectively. In the second phase, saphenous vein graft patency was assessed in living patients with multislice computerized tomography (CT) by cross-sectional prospective study. RESULTS: A total of 61 saphenous vein grafts (SVG) were used in patients who have undergone concomitant CABG. A total of 39.6% of the patients had single vessel disease, 45.8% of the patients had two-vessel disease and 14.6% three-vessel or more disease. The mean follow-up duration was 3.7±1.9 years. SVG cumulative patency rate was 45.9%. Although the coronary artery position in which the saphenous graft was least occluded was the left anterior descending artery (9.1%) and the position in which it was most occluded was right coronary artery (51.5%), there was no statistically significant difference among the coronary positions in which the SVG was used (p>0.05). CONCLUSION: The saphenous vein conduit anastomosed to the aortic dacron graft may have negative effects on graft patency. The placement of saphenous vein on a native tissue like the innominate artery may have beneficial effects of graft patency by slowing down neointimal hyperplasia.