Angiographic assessment of sequential and individual coronary artery bypass grafting

Objective: In trying to answer the question about the controversial use of sequential grafts, we determined the mid-term angiographic outcome of patients in whom coronary artery bypass was performed with different types of vein grafts. Methods: A total of 1034 coronary anastomoses on 724 saphenous vein grafts (SVGs) (apart from 497 left internal mammarian artery (LIMA) anastomoses) were assessed in 509 patients in an average of 55.4 -/+ 17.6 months after coronary artery bypass grafting. Results: The patency rates of sequential conduits were markedly higher than those of individual ones (86.6% vs 69.6%, p = 0.0001). Also, the anastomoses on the sequential conduits had better patency rates (80.6% vs 69.6%, p = 0.0001). This difference was even more pronounced in coronary arteries of poor quality/small (<1.5 mm) diameter (68.9% vs 51.6%) for the sequential and individual grafts, respectively (p = 0.03). Also, the patency of the entire sequential conduit was lower when most distally located anastomosis was of poor runoff (45.2%). Conclusions: The patency of a sequential vein conduit is generally superior than that of an individual one, especially for poor runoff coronary vessels, provided that the most distally located anastomosis is performed on a good coronary artery in terms of quality and diameter. Using a minimal length of SVG is another advantage. However, failure of a single sequential conduit jeopardizes all of the anastomoses along that graft segment. Besides, being technically more demanding, technical expertise in performing a sequential anastomosis is probably among the important predictors of patency.