Non-invasive assessment of the composite radial artery and in situ left internal thoracic artery Y-graft for myocardial revascularization.

Background: It is controversial whether composite arterial grafts can provide adequate blood flow for myocardial revascularization. We assessed at transthoracic echography and myocardial scintigraphy the composite radial artery-in situ left internal thoracic artery Y-graft.

Methods: In 32 of 36 consecutive patients who underwent myocardial revascularization using this composite arterial graft, successful postoperative transthoracic images of the main stem of the Y-graft were obtained at rest and early after standard exercise.

The edge-to-edge technique as a trick to rescue an imperfect mitral valve repair.

Objective: The edge-to-edge (E-to-E) technique in mitral valve repair (MVR) is promising especially to correct mitral insufficiency (MI) caused by complex mitral valve lesions. We tested this technique to improve residual MI straight after conventional MVR.

Methods: From September 1998 to January 2002, 108 consecutive patients underwent MVR with current techniques for pure MI.