INTRODUCTION
Radial artery (RA) has been initially used in the early 1970s (1) but
was abandoned because of high incidence of early graft failure and
suboptimal clinical outcomes (2). Following better understanding of the
anatomy and physiology of the RA, namely the thickness and the
reactivity of its muscular wall rendering it prone to spasm and the
beneficial effects of vasodilating agents and calcium channel blockers
in preventing vasospasm (3-5) RA has since 1990s been established as a
reliable arterial graft superior to saphenous vein and in some reports
even comparable to internal mammary artery for CABG (6-11).
Initially RA has been harvested with an open technique (12), however
encouraged by the good outcomes observed with endoscopic harvest of the
long saphenous vein (SVG) (13), surgeons have also applied endoscopic
techniques to harvest the RA (13,14,15,16).
The aim of our study was to compare the clinical outcome, the degree of
patient satisfaction and one-year angiographic RA patency rates in two
cohorts of patients that were prospectively randomized to undergo
multivessel, first time, elective CABG using (amongst other conduits) RA
that was harvested using endoscopic or open techniques.