Endoscopic Radial Artery Harvest: Techniques & Results

Jeong, Young Kyun; Lee, Jong Tae; Cho, Jun Yong; Kim, Kyu Tae; Chang, Bong Hyun

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The radial arteries are being used more often for coronary artery bypass grafting. We tried to the endoscopic radial artery harvest to reduce the cosmetic problems and neurologic complications of the conventional open harvesting and report the techniques and early results. MATERIAL AND METHOD: The 86 patients underwent coronary artery bypass grafting between May 2003 and April 2005 had their nondominant radial artery endoscopically removed through a 2 cm incision at the wrist. The radial pedicle was dissected and was divided at antecubial area through a 5 mm counterincision. RESULT: The 23 patients complained of neuralgias on territory of superficial raidal nerve but no one complained of neuralgias on territory of lateral antebrachial cutaneous nerve. There was no functional impairment of the hand. There was no wound complication except a localized hematoma. All patients were contacted by telephone after postoperative 7.9+/-3.6 months. The 4 patients still complained of neuralgia. All the patients were satisfied with the aesthetics of the wounds. The multidetectional tomography was done on the 66 patients for the estimation of early patency of radial artery. There were 2 cases of stenosis and a case of occlusion.
CONCLUSION
Endoscopic radial artery harvest had no functional impairment of the hand, lesser rate of neurologic complications and outstanding aesthetics. The results of early patency of the radial artery was similar to conventional methods. Therefore, we think that endoscopic radial artery harvest is the optimal procedure.