Clip stenosis--a hazard of incorrectly prepared saphenous vein bypass grafts to coronary arteries.

During the routine review of control follow-up cinéangiograms taken of patients after aorto-coronary bypass grafting, the authors noted a number of vein graft stenoses of varying severity. All stenoses were in the segment of vein away from the aortic or coronary anastomoses, but were clearly at the site of a steel clip used to occlude side branches during preparation of the vein graft. The incidence was too high to be related to chance, and in some cases the intrusion of the clip upon the lumen was obvious. Suggestions are made to eliminate the occurrence of this iatrogenic stenosis.