Roscitano Antonino, Capuano Fabio, Tonelli Euclide, Sinatra Riccardo
Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, "La Sapienza" University, Rome, Italy.
Ital Heart J. 2004 Sep;5(9):720-2.
In the past decade the rate of reoperative coronary bypass grafting has averaged 8%. In these patients adequate myocardial protection is often difficult because delivery of cardioplegia is frequently suboptimal when the internal mammary artery graft is patent. We describe a simple technique for performing cardiac reoperation in patients with a patent left internal mammary artery graft through a balloon catheter used for angioplasty and positioned in the left internal mammary artery graft. Our study included 3 patients and there were no operative deaths and complications.
