[Care of patients following coronary bypass surgery from the internist's viewpoint].

Follow-up of bypass patients in the early postoperative phase involves the management of complications such as perioperative myocardial infarction, postoperative arrhythmias, pericarditis, postcardiotomy-syndrome, fever, infection and chest pain. The longterm management has to focus on changes in lifestyle with particular regard to risk factors for coronary atherosclerosis. Diagnostic tools for work-up of postoperative chest pain include stress testing and radionuclide techniques; ultrafast computerized tomography is superior in the evaluation of bypass function to cine-NMR. Conventional angiography is still the only method to reliably visualize graft patency and anastomotic sites. Indications for reoperations can be well defined.