Internal mammary artery and saphenous vein graft patency. Effects of aspirin.

As part of two Department of Veterans Affairs Cooperative Trials, we obtained angiographic patency data for internal mammary artery (IMA) and saphenous vein grafts to the left anterior descending (LAD) coronary artery at 1 year after coronary artery bypass surgery. Patients received either aspirin 325 mg q.d., aspirin 325 mg t.i.d., aspirin 325 mg and dipyridamole 75 mg t.i.d., or placebo. Aspirin was initiated either 12 hours before or 6 hours after operation. Patients were stratified preoperatively for extent of disease and randomized to the therapies outlined above. There was no randomization to IMA versus saphenous vein grafts to the LAD. When the patients taking placebo were compared with those taking aspirin, there were no differences in the IMA (100.0% versus 92.1%, p = 0.385) or vein graft (88.8% versus 90.4%, p = 0.675) patency rates. The patency rate, irrespective of treatment, for all IMA grafts was 92.8% (220 of 237) versus 90.1% (345 of 383) for all vein grafts to the LAD (p = 0.309). Thus, both the IMA and vein grafts had excellent patency rates at 1 year. Aspirin did not alter this at 1 year, and there were no differences between IMA and vein graft patency to the LAD.