Aorto-femoral bypass and determinants of early success and late favourable outcome. Experience with 1000 consecutive cases.

Experience with 1000 cases of aorto-(bi)femoral bypass is presented evaluating factors influencing the overall patency rate and late survival, over a period of 25 years. There were 820 cases with bilateral and 180 with a unilateral bypass. Mortality was 3.3% and death rate 39.4%. Re-do procedures have been excluded. Operative indications were for stage I disease (moderate claudication) (17.6%), stage II (advanced claudication) (53.2%), stage III (rest pain and/or pregangrenous changes) (22.7%) and stage IV (gangrenous tissue loss (6.5%). Myocardial infarction was the predominant cause of late death in 192 cases (48.7%), followed by cancer in 48 (13%), cerebrovascular disease in 43 (11%), chronic lung disease with cor pulmonale in 15 (3.8%) and miscellaneous causes in 52 (13.2%) of patients. The cause of death was unknown in 31 (7.8%) cases. Co-existent peripheral arteriopathy (PAD) noted in 377 (37.7%) patients, was found to be a major determinant of late graft patency. Carotid artery disease and renovascular hypertension were corrected surgically, prior to aorto-femoral bypass in the 5.6% and concomitantly in 4.2%. Coronary artery disease in 273 (27.3%) patients and hypertension in 269 (26.9%), had a great influence on late survival as did age and smoking habits. Endarterectomy together with profundaplasty was carried out in 162 (16.2%) instances. It was our policy to extend the graft limb over the profunda femoris and in cases with co-existent superficial femoral artery disease 208 (20.8%). In 630 (63%) instances, the distal anastomosis was performed at the level of common femoral artery. Immediate graft patency was obtained in 99.3% of the cases. Late patency rate for stages I and II at 5, 10 and 15 years was 82%, 76% and 72% respectively. Following secondary operation for graft occlusion, the 15 year patency was increased to 71%. Co-existent superficial femoral disease can be alleviated by appropriate concomitant profundaplasty. Amputation rates were 0.8% for stage II, 1.5% for stage III and 2.4% for stage IV disease. Twenty year life table analysis showed a reduced survival (54%), in comparison with normal population (77%).