Temporary arterio-venous shunts to dilate saphenous crossover graft and maintain graft patency

A modification of the Palma operation is described in a 25-year-old man with impaired venous outflow of the right leg. After a phlebitic occlusion of the right superficial femoral and external iliac veins he had been operated on twice for varicose veins. The result of these operations was a serious outflow stasis of the right leg during exercise. A saphenous cross-over graft to the right popliteal vein was constructed. Preoperatively a temporary arterio-venous shunt between the left posterior tibial artery and the great saphenous vein had been made in order to increase the diameter of the saphenous vein. Three months later the dilated saphenous vein was resected at the level of the sapheno-tibial artery shunt and anastomosed to the popliteal vein of the right leg. The cross-over graft occluded several times during this operation. A temporary popliteo-popliteal arterio-venous shunt was established distally to the sapheno-popliteal anastomosis to keep the vein graft patent. This second arterio-venous shunt was resected after three months. Venography one month later showed that the vein graft was patent. The patient's complaints had disappeared one month after the operation and a normalization of his venous outflow was recorded plethysmographically. The graft has remained patent during an observation time of eighteen months.