Noninvasive Assessment of Aorta-Coronary Saphenous Vein Bypass Graft Patency Using Thermocouple

Noninvasive monitoring of patency of aorta-coronary bypass grafts can be achieved with reasonable accuracy using the thermocouple. This method is consisted of attaching the thermocouple to the surface of grafted vein during surgery and judging the patency by rapid injection of iced solution into peripheral vein. Patient grafted vein will show the thermal change after injecting iced solution. On the contrary, occluded graft will show no thermal change. As this thermal curve is a thermodilution curve by a single injection and is measured from the outside of the vessel, thermal change depends on the temperature and the quantity of the injected solution, cardiac output, body temperature, and loss of indicator temperature along the way to the thermocouple. When the grafted vein is patent, the same thermal curves are recorded regardless of the amount of the flow, and zero flow resulted in disappearance of curve. Initially, the method was evaluated in dogs and the appropriateness was verified. Subsequently, this method was applied to 16 vein grafts of 12 patients undergoing aorta-coronary bypass surgery. Ten or 15 ml of iced solution was injected through inferior vena cava or antecubital vein and the thermal change of the grafted vein was recorded for 1-4 weeks after the operation. Fourteen grafted veins were judged to be patent and 2 were occluded. The comparison of the results by this method with coronary angiography undergone at 4 weeks after the operation showed no false positive case but 1 false negative case. This extravascular observation of the thermodilution curve is a convenient method for judging whether vein graft is patent or not.