Radiopharmaceutical uptake as a marker of sternal blood supply following internal mammary artery harvesting.

To evaluate the impact of internal mammary artery harvesting on sternal blood supply after open heart surgery, a conventional bone scan was performed 7 days after operation in 30 patients. After administration of 370 MBq of technetium 99 m-medronic acid complex, imaging was carried out at the level of the sternum and including the humerus as a reference. A quantitative analysis of uptake (sternum/humerus uptake index) was performed and compared in three different groups of patients: group A, ten patients who had only vein grafts or valve surgery; group B, ten patients with single internal mammary artery harvesting; and group C, ten patients with bilateral internal mammary artery harvesting. These results were compared with 24 non-surgical subjects as a control (group D). Although intervention had a significant influence in raising the uptake index of the surgical groups (A = 3.34; B = 3.09 and C = 3.48) when compared with normal subjects (D = 2.45) (P < 0.01), there was not a statistically significant difference among the three surgical groups (P > 0.05). It was concluded that the vascular supply of the sternum is not entirely dependent upon the internal mammary arteries and that mobilization of both vessels does not cause per se additional serious impact to the bone vascularization after midline sternotomy, at least beyond day 7 after operation.