[Coronary revascularization with bilateral internal thoracic artery grafts]

Thirty-two patients underwent coronary revascularization with bilateral internal thoracic artery (ITA) grafts. Each patient received 2.7 grafts in average including double ITA grafts. Seventeen patients had the right ITAs as free grafts. The other sixteen were treated with 13 autologous veins and 9 right gastroepiploic arteries in addition. Fifty-five grafts out of 56 (98.2%) were proved to be patent at the time of hospital discharge. The postoperative morbidity included three reoperations for bleeding and one perioperative inferior myocardial infarction. One patient died of colon perforation after surgery and another died of cerebral infarction late after surgery. These results exhibited that coronary artery bypass grafting with bilateral ITA grafts had relatively low risks and could contribute to complete revascularization in patients with diseased coronary arteries.