The Morphologic Changes of Femoral Artery-graft Anastomosis with the Squatting Position

Park, Ki Hyuk; Joo, Yoon Seung

Abstract

PURPOSE: There is a traditional belief that the oriental squatting position could be harmful to a femoral artery-graft anastomosis. Should patients be advised not to squat after a femoral artery bypass-graft? We studied the morphological changes during squatting to determine if there were any negative effects on the anastomosis configuration. METHOD: For a fluoroscopic marker, after the anastomosis at least five 2 mm Hemo-clips(R) (Telefix, Inc., US) with an interval of 1 mm, were left along the PTFE graft and native artery in eight patients. Five patients (10 limbs) were evaluated by fluoroscopy at 2 weeks post surgery. X-rays were taken serially for lateral views of the hip joint supine, in hip flexion (90 degrees) and in the knee to chest position, which simulated squatting. The angle of the graft-artery at each position was measured in the PACS computer screen. RESULT: The angle for each position in the 10 limbs was studied. The mean angle changed from supine to the knee-chest position and was 22.2 degrees. The larger angle between the abdominal wall and the graft was reduced in all cases, which means that the shape of the graft-artery became T-shaped.
CONCLUSION
The configuration of the graft-artery after squatting became T-shaped, which was contrary to our belief that the angle would decrease between the abdominal wall and the graft. There is no evidence that this configuration would have a negative influence on the graft patency.