The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Vol 83, 563-568, Copyright © 1982 by The American Association for Thoracic Surgery and The Western Thoracic Surgical Association
Increased regional myocardial perfusion after intracoronary papaverine in patients after coronary artery bypass grafting
S Goldman, R Henry, MJ Friedman, T Ovitt, A Rosenfeld, N Salomon and J Copeland
The objective of coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) is to increase
blood flow to ischemic areas of the myocardium. To determine if this was
achieved, anterior wall myocardial perfusion was measured at rest and
during intracoronary papaverine (5 mg), with the use of xenon-133 washout
in 35 patients. Twelve control patients had no significant diameter
narrowing (0% to 25%) of the left anterior descending coronary artery
(LAD), 13 patients had greater than 50% narrowing of the LAD, and 10
patients had greater than 50% narrowing of the LAD with patent saphenous
vein bypass grafts to the LAD. There was no significant difference in age.
LVEDP, and global ejection fraction among the patients. There was no
significant difference in anterior wall myocardial perfusion at rest
between control subjects (61.0 +/- 3.7 ml/min/100 gm) and non-CABG LAD
patients (60.2 +/- 5.4 ml/min/100 gm), or CABG LAD patients (63.4 +/- 4.8
ml/min/100 gm). After coronary arteriolar vasodilatation with papaverine,
anterior wall perfusion increased in the CABG patients to 140.6 +/- 6.8
ml/min/100 gm. This was significantly greater (p less than 0.001) than the
increase in the non- CABG LAD patients (72.8 +/- 8.1 ml/min/100 gm) but not
different from the increase in the control subjects (145.3 +/- 8.4
ml/min/100 gm). In three cases, the same patients were studied before and
after CABG with identical results. These data indicate that in patients
with coronary disease, increases in myocardial perfusion are limited by the
resistance of the proximal stenosis independent of vasodilatation distal to
the stenosis. After successful CABG, the patent vein graft restores control
of myocardial perfusion to the arteriolar bed.