Patients
Sixty patients received CABG from the same surgeon from July 2016 to
April 2018 (43 males and 17 females, aged 44–76 years, mean age of 61 ±
6 years) were included in this study. All patients suffered from
myocardial ischemia because of one or more stenoses of coronary
arteries. There were 45 patients with lesions in three or more main
branches of the coronary artery, 7 patients with lesions in two branches
of the coronary artery, and 8 patients with lesion in only one main
branch of the coronary artery. They underwent in situ left IMA
bypass to the left anterior descending coronary artery (n = 6 only used
left IMA-anterior descending branch as vascular grafts; n = 54 also used
saphenous venous grafts). Their general data were collected. Luminal
diameters and blood flow of the bilateral IMA of all patients were
assessed preoperatively. The ultrasound parameters related to the left
IMA were reexamined approximately 1 week after the surgery to evaluate
the blood flow and analyze the factors affecting the flow of vascular
grafts. The protocol of this study was approved by the ethics committee.
All patients signed written informed consent forms before participating
in this study.
Exclusion criteria of this study included congenital heart diseases or
other structural heart diseases, any significant reduction of left
ventricular function (<30%) or recent heart failure, lesions
in proximal subclavian artery, vascular graft other than the left IMA to
anterior descending branch, and intraoperative rupture in the proximal
region of left IMA.