[Technical potentials for performing intravital aortocoronary shunting in sudden death from ischemic heart disease (based on postmortem coronary angiographic data)].

Technical feasibility of aortocoronary shunting was examined retrospectively in 70 cases where sudden coronary death had occurred outside of hospital. Postmortem coronary angiograms, coronary arterial cross sections made at 5 mm intervals, and the nature and spread of focal myocardial lesions were studied. A coronary artery with more than 50% of its lumen affected in the proximal or middle part, but no significant narrowings in the distal channel, was considered shuntable if myocardial focal lesions did not exceed 15% of left-ventricular and interventricular-septum volume. Complete myocardial revascularization was found to be technically feasible in 36.2% of sudden coronary deaths and partial revascularization, in 33.3%, whereas in 30.5% myocardial revascularization proved technically impossible.