Intraoperative Color Doppler Ultrasound Assessment of LIMA-to-LAD Anastomoses in Off-Pump Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting

Background. Although techniques for off-pump coro-nary artery bypass grafting (CABG) are continually being refined, angiographic follow-up studies have indicated a higher rate of anastomoses-related stenoses than ex-pected after traditional on-pump CABG. This study was performed to evaluate the use of intraoperative epicar-dial color Doppler ultrasound to quality-assess left inter-nal mammary artery (LIMA) to left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD) anastomoses performed on the beating heart. Methods. Twenty-four LIMA-to-LAD anastomoses were evaluated with real-time epicardial ultrasound im-aging using an ultrasound transducer positioned be-tween the paddles of the stabilizer during off-pump procedures. The length of the anastomosis (DA), diame