Angiographic follow-up after internal mammary artery graft angioplasty

Internal mammary artery (IMA) grafts are increasingly being used in the treatment of coronary artery disease. These conduits have been shown to have a low frequency of atherosclerotic narrowing, a high long-term patency rate, and a substantial beneficial effect on the survival of patients undergoing surgical myocardial revascularization.^1-4 Because the patency of the IMA graft is critical to long-term patient survival, stenosis of this graft postoperatively is a major clinical problem. The low graft attrition rate has limited our knowledge of the role of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty in the treatment of IMA graft stenoses. Documentation of the safety and efficacy of IMA graft angioplasty has been limited to isolated case reports and series involving small numbers of patients with low angiographic follow-up rates.^5-11 This study describes our experience regarding the clinical and angiographic outcome after angioplasty of IMA graft stenoses in a consecutive series of patients with a high rate of angiographic follow-up.