Correspondence Letter by Brugaletta et al Regarding Article, “Vascular Reactivity and Flow Characteristics of Radial Artery and Long Saphenous Vein Coronary Bypass Grafts: A 5-Year Follow-Up” To the Editor:

We read with interest the article by Webb et al,1 demonstrating that, 5 years after coronary surgery, radial artery (RA) grafts have a preserved flow-mediated vasodilatation, whereas saphenous vein (SV) grafts have not. We agree with the authors that these results may provide insight into the more favorable patency of the RA graft over the SV graft, because the RA grafts preserved their ability to autoregulate their diameter in response to changes in myocardial flow physiology. However, some considerations about the SV graft should be highlighted. First, although the results represent a situation 5 years after the surgery, it is important to know the baseline situation of these patients. The authors have already shown a reduced dilatation to acetylcholine but preserved dilator response to nitrate in SV grafts 3 months after surgery.2 According to these published results, the authors stated that they have now found a loss of the dilator respons