Axillary-axillary artery bypass for the correction of subclavian artery occlusive disease

Numerous procedures have been proposed for the correction of symptomatic subclavian artery occlusive disease, none of which have been uniformly accepted by vascular surgeons. During the past 21 months we have successfully treated six patients with symptomatic subclavian artery occlusive disease by the construction of an axillary-axillary artery bypass. There were three complications in this small series, a wound hematoma, a case of median nerve parasthesias, and a late graft thrombosis, possibly caused by external pressure on the graft. These complications have not caused any serious morbidity. All patients have been followed to the present time, all have experienced symptomatic improvement and none has developed any symptoms of donor arm ischemia. Axillary-axillary artery bypass is currently our procedure of choice for the correction of symptomatic subclavian artery occlusive disease because of its effectiveness, absence of serious morbidity and ease of performance.