Heart bypass patients experience better outcomes when the surgeon uses a segment of the radial artery instead of one from the saphenous vein, according to a new analysis of more than 1,000 patients.
The findings were presented Monday, March 30, at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session Together with World Congress of Cardiology (ACC.20/WCC). The study’s authors combined data from five different clinical trials. A total of 1,036 patients undergoing heart bypass surgery were randomly assigned to get a second bypass from either their radial artery or their saphenous vein. The average patient age was 67 years old, and 70% of participants were men. The surgeries were performed in one of five countries: Australia, Korea, Italy, Serbia and the United Kingdom.
Overall, after a median of 10 years, patients who underwent a heart bypass surgery that used the radial artery for the second bypass had a 27% reduction in deaths, a 26% reduction in heart attacks and a 38% reduction in repeat procedures.
“The choice of an artery or a vein to create the second bypass is one of the most important unresolved questions in contemporary bypass surgery,” principal investigator Mario Gaudino, MD, a professor at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, said in a statement. “This study offers the first evidence from randomized trials to show that patients live longer and have better outcomes when surgeons use the radial artery instead of the saphenous vein to create the second bypass.”
The team did note that there were certain limitations to its research. The sample size could have been much bigger, for instance, and they combined numerous trials instead of relying on one larger trial.
“Our overall sample size of just over 1,000 patients is fairly small, especially considering that bypass surgery is such a widely performed operation,” he said. “These results are important, but they do not give us a final answer. We need a large randomized trial to confirm these findings.”
Michael has more than 16 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.