Plication of the right atrium in order to confront a right coronary artery under tension graft.

An under tension graft to the right coronary artery may result in graft spasm, hypoperfusion and myocardial infarction. We suggest plication of the right atrium in order to confront the under tension graft (either arterial or venous), if tension is due to a shorter (up to 2 cm) graft than one needed. We present this technique applied to 10 of our patients.

Open versus tunneling radial artery harvest for coronary artery grafting.

We present a less traumatic surgical technique for harvesting the radial artery as a coronary artery bypass graft that does not require any special equipment or skills. We prospectively randomized 40 patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting with the radial artery into two groups on the basis of harvest techniques: tunneling excision and conventional open method. The less-invasive tunneling technique is safe, easily applicable, and preferred by patients because of the superior cosmetic result.