At the Instituto Dante Pazzanese de Cardiollogia, the use of mammary-coronary anastomosis was iniciated in 1972, isolated or with saphenous vein by-pass or other procedure. Initially only left internal mammary artery LAD anastomosis was employed in a few (57) cases. In 1973/1974, the aplication of this technique was intensified-386 cases. The method was practically descontinued between 1975 to 1982 - only 43 cases were performed. Since then, its use increased steadily and the right internal mammary artery has been used as well. In 1984, studying 177 patients, we observed that this technique does not influence the incidence of external dehiscence on the reoperation for bleeding; but in 25% occurred an elevation of hemolateral diaphragm, in 17% atelectasis, and in 27.6% pleural effusion. In 654 patients with mammary-coronary anastomoses and saphenous vein grafts followed up to nine years; patency was 91.5% for mammaries and 70.6% for saphenous veins. In another group of 102 patients with isolated mammarycoronary anastomosis patency was 94.4% in a period between 5 and 10 years. The mortality rate of all 2923 cases was 3.45%.
mammary-coronary artery anastomosis