The authors present the results obtained in the first 30 day P.O. of 204 patients who underwent reoperations for coronary atherosclerosis. The interval between first and second operation varied from 1 month to 16.5 years. There was also two small groups of patients of third intervention and with associated cardiac lesions. The basic strategy consisted on anticoagulation, the aplication of the mammary arteries (one or two) whenever possible, and revascularization as complete as possible. Most patients showed uneventfull evolution and a quarter of them presented some kind of non-fatal complication with good response to specific therapeutic measures. The overall mortality was about 9%. Patients with atherosclerotic lesions in native coronary circulation presented the greater morbidity, but in those with atherosclerotic lesions both in the grafts and coronary native circulation, the mortality was higher. Contrary to expectation, the younger group showed higher mortality, and the older group presented higher morbidity. The aplication of the IMA's on the reintervention does not add morbidity or mortality, but the concomitant correction of the associated cardiac pathologies represented a higher risk in the procedure. Recent myocardial infarction influenced also morbidity. The third intervention, failure transluminal angioplastic coronary dilatation and the presence of previous IMA does not exert deleterious impact on the morbidity or mortality.
myocardial revascularization