Vessel harvesting
surgical procedure
Vessel harvesting is a surgical technique that may be used in conjunction with a coronary artery bypass graft (CABG). For patients with coronary artery disease, a vascular bypass may be recommended to reroute blood around blocked arteries to restore and improve blood flow and oxygen to the heart. To create the bypass graft, a surgeon will remove or "harvest" healthy blood vessels from another part of the body, either arteries from an arm or the chest, or veins from a leg. This vessel becomes a graft, with one end attaching to a blood source above and the other end below the blocked area, creating a "conduit" channel or new blood flow connection across the heart.
The success of a coronary artery bypass graft may be influenced by the quality of the conduit and how it is handled or treated during the vessel harvest and preparation steps prior to grafting.
Success can be measured in terms of:
The need for repeat revascularization to treat a new blockage
Morbidity
Mortality (minimal)
Method
Coronary artery bypass graft surgery has been in practice since the 1960s. Historically, vessels—such as the great saphenous vein in the leg or the radial artery in the arm—were obtained using a traditional "open" procedure that required a single, long incision from groin to ankle, or a "bridging" technique that used three or four smaller incisions.
The most minimally invasive technique is known as endoscopic vessel harvesting (EVH), often described as endoscopic vein harvesting when a saphenous vein is used. This type of procedure requires a single 2 cm incision plus one or two smaller incisions of 2–3 mm in length.
Each method involves carefully cutting and sealing off smaller blood vessels that branch off the main vessel conduit prior to removal from the body.
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