Late Results of Coronary Bypass in Patients with Infrarenal Aortic Aneurysms

Cardiac catheterization was performed in a prospective series of 1000 patients under consideration for elective peripheral vascular reconstruction at the Cleveland Clinic from 1978-1982. Of these, 246 patients (mean age: 68 years) presented primarily because of infrarenal abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) and are eligible for subsequent evaluation 3-7 years (mean: 4.6 years) after entrance into the study. Severe, surgically correctable coronary artery disease (CAD) was documented in 78 patients (32%) in the AAA group, and 70 patients (28%) received myocardial revascularization with four fatal complications (5.7%). A total of 56 patients in this subset had staged aneurysm resection, usually during the same hospital admission after coronary bypass, with a single death (1.8%) caused by cerebral infarction. The overall operative mortality rate for 126 coronary and AAA procedures was 4%. A total of 59 additional patients (25%) died during the late follow-up interval, including 14 patients (5.9%) with cardiac events and eight patients (3.4%) with ruptured aneurysms. The cumulative 5-year survival rate (75%) and cardiac mortality rate (5%) after coronary bypass reflected traditional parameters (preoperative ventricular function, completeness of revascularization) and are nearly identical to the results calculated for patients having normal coronary arteries or only mild to moderate CAD. In comparison, the cumulative survival and cardiac mortality rates in a small subset of patients with severe, uncorrected coronary involvement currently are 29% (p = 0.0001) and 34%, respectively. These data support the conclusion that selected patients who require elective resection of AAA also warrant myocardial revascularization to enhance perioperative risk and late survival.