Hemorrhagic complications resulting in reoperation after peripheral vascular surgery: a fourteen-year experience

Eighty-nine patients who underwent reoperation because of hemorrhagic complications after peripheral arterial surgery were studied and compared with 103 patients without such complications. Elevation of erythrocyte sedimentation rate, serum creatinine values, and blood pressure before anesthesia was found more often in patients with hemorrhage. The frequency of reoperation due to control hemorrhage was 2.8%; femorodistal and carotid reconstructions were complicated by hemorrhage requiring reoperation significantly more often than other types of vascular surgery, 3.2% and 4.2%, respectively. The use of vacuum drains apparently did not contribute to the diagnosis of bleeding requiring reoperation. Amputation was a more frequent outcome in femorodistal reconstructions complicated by hemorrhage than in similar operations without this complication. After reoperations performed within 48 hours of the primary operation, the clinical course mostly was uncomplicated, whereas in reoperations performed later the bleeding usually was associated with infection of the reconstruction, resulting in a higher frequency of amputation. Most of the late hemorrhages occurred in groin incisions.