Cardiac valve surgery combined with aortocoronary bypass.

An analysis of the experience obtained in combined cardiac valve and coronary artery surgery in 23 patients was performed. The dominant feature of their clinical symptomatology was valvular disease in the majority of patients, even though angina pectoris was present in 14 of them. In all patients, cardiac valve surgery was carried out together with coronary reconstruction in the form of a single to triple bypass. The procedure involved, in two cases, simultaneous removal of a left ventricular aneurysm and, in one patient, closure of a postinfarction lesion of the interventricular septum. One patient died in the postoperative period displaying signs of the low cardiac output syndrome. Long-term follow-up included 20 patients operated on. Improvement of a varying degree was observed in 19 patients.