Background
Cases of coronary heart disease have been increasing in recent years and
appearing in younger patients [1]. Coronary artery
revascularization can improve long-term patient prognosis and quality of
life. Ever since the American College of Cardiology Foundation and
American Heart Association (ACCF/AHA) revised the Guidelines for
Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting (GABG) in 2011[2], CABG procedures have been significantly more
numerous and in situ left internal mammary artery (IMA)-anterior
descending branch bypass grafting has become the first choice for
clinicians, with the treatment rate increasing from 31% in 1988 to 91%
in 2008 [3], leading to better immediate and
long-term postoperative outcomes (i.e., lower rates of mortality,
myocardial infarction, and reoperation) than venous grafts, and 90–97%
5-year patency rates [3,4]. Although coronary
angiography is the gold standard for evaluating the patency of vascular
grafts, ultrasound, a non-invasive and reproducible method of
examination, has been adopted in clinical practice. It would be of great
value for evaluating the preoperative related parameters of IMA and the
postoperative graft patency to effectively assess the success rate of
surgery and the prognosis of the patients. In this study, we mainly used
ultrasound to evaluate the changes in related parameters of IMA before
and after the in situ CABG in IMA and the factors affecting the
postoperative flow of the vascular grafts.