The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Vol 73, 231-236, Copyright © 1977 by The American Association for Thoracic Surgery and The Western Thoracic Surgical Association
Effects of coronary artery bypass surgery on hemodynamic parameters and derived indices of myocardial function
AD Santos, A Benchimol, KB Desser and C Graves
Pre- and postoperative hemodynamic indices were compared in 116 patients
subjected to aorto-coronary bypass after an average interval of 128 days.
The patients were separated into three different groups according to graft
status: Group 1 (n = 77), all grafts patent; Group 2 (n = 27), one occluded
graft out of two or three implanted; Group 3 (n = 12), all grafts occluded.
There were no significant major changes of values so obtained in the three
groups. Those subjects with initially depressed cardiac indices or elevated
left ventricular end-diastolic pressures manifested a significant trend
toward improvement when at least one bypass graft was patent. A reduction
of cardiac index was noted in patients with occluded left anterior
descending coronary grafts only in association with closure of other
grafts. Deterioration of cardiac index or left ventricular end-diastolic
pressure into the abnormal range was unusual in the study group, even when
all grafts were occluded. It is concluded that data relating to the
influence of aorto-coronary bypass on standard indices of left ventricular
function can be properly interpreted only when certain subsets of patients
are studied.
