The early results of reconstruction of the femoral artery with a Gore-Tex prosthesis.

An analysis is presented of the results of forty-one reconstructions of the superficial femoral artery using a Gore-Tex prosthesis. There were four complications and the results, when the boundary conditions were good, were comparable to those obtained from reconstruction with autogenous vein. Most failures occurred in patients in whom the branches of the popliteal artery were obliterated. We concluded that a Gore-Tex prosthesis is a reasonable alternative when autogenous vein is unavailable, but it is overly optimistic to expect any prosthesis to work in circumstances where a vein is unlikely to work.