Study of graft arteries – Introduction

• Introduction
• Background
• Study Design
• Data Collection
• Analysis
• Data
• Glossary

Professor Brian Buxton and Dr. Permyos Ruengsakulrach (Lek) were heart surgeons at the Austin and Repatriation Medical Centre at the time of this study. Coronary bypass surgery involves taking pieces of artery or vein from elsewhere in the body (either the chest, arm or leg) and using them to replace blocked arteries in the heart. This means the surgeon needs to choose which artery or vein to use for a Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG). Brian and Lek wanted to compare abnormalities in the internal thoracic artery (from the chest) and the radial artery (from the arm). They also wanted to investigate risk factors for developing arterial abnormalities. Standard CABG uses the left internal thoracic artery as the first choice but may use a radial artery or the right internal thoracic artery if further grafts are required.

The key question that Brian and Lek wanted to answer was:

In the same patients, were the levels of disease similar in the radial artery and the internal thoracic artery?

Timeline

Early 1995	Study design
Early 1995	Application to Ethics Committee
May, 1995	Data collection starts
October, 1997	Data collection finishes
1997 – 1998	Data analysis
June, 1998	Write up for publication
November, 1999	Article appears in Circulation