Current status of the inferior epigastric artery.

The current trend is to use more arterial conduits for myocardial revascularization. The rationale for this trend is that the late patency rate of internal thoracic artery grafts has been shown to be superior to that of saphenous vein grafts. The desire to achieve complete myocardial revascularizations only with arterial conduits has led to consideration of new arteries as coronary artery bypass grafts. Recently, the inferior epigastric artery has been proposed as one of these alternative grafts. It is expected that this new conduit will provide the same advantages as the free internal thoracic artery used in similar circumstances, but this assumption has not been validated yet. This article will review the clinical experience currently gained with the use of the inferior epigastric artery as a coronary artery bypass graft.