Assessment of Coronary Artery Bypass Grafts Status in Symptomatic Patients: An Observational Study

Background: The patency rate of arterial and venous grafts are not fully understood in symptomatic patients following coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) in developing country like India. Objective: The study defined the status of Internal Mammary Artery (IMA) and Saphenous Vein Grafts (SVG) in post CABG symptomatic patients (angina, dyspnea, etc). Method: In this observational study, all symptomatic patients following CABG were included and admitted for Coronary Angiogram (CAG) during the period of January, 2013 to March, 2016. Results: Within this period, CAG was performed in 216 post CABG patients. The mean age of study subjects was 65.4 +/- 8.06 years. The mean duration following CABG was 9.4 +/- 4.5 years (range: 2-22 years). Left IMA was patent in 84%, whereas, right IMA was patent in 78% grafted vessel. The SVG patency rate was lesser than IMA grafts. SVG was patent in 67% patients of right posterior descending artery (PDA) grafts and 65% of patients of obtuse marginal (OM) artery grafts. Interestingly, SVG patency was more (81%) when it was used for left anterior descending artery (LAD) or diagonal artery (D) grafting. Statistical analysis couldn’t demonstrate any cardiac risk factors which could significantly associated with graft occlusion. Conclusion: After about 10 years of mean duration following operation, our data showed that patency for IMA grafts was worse than expected in our symptomatic patients. The patency rate of SVG to LAD/ D1 was better than SVG to PDA/ OM. Keywords: Coronary artery bypass grafting; Coronary artery disease; Internal mammary artery graft; Saphenous vein graft; Symptomati