Non-invasive assessment of the steal phenomenon following femoro-femoral bypass

Abstract

Clinical studies were performed on 42 patients who underwent femoro-femoral bypass and postoperative assessment of the ankle/brachial pressure index (API) and Doppler waveform for each limb was carried out. Patients who had poor runoff of the donor limb showed a significant decrease in API after ankle joint exercise (p less than 0.05), whereas no significant change was observed in patients who had poor runoff of the recipient limb. The response of pulsatility index was similar to that of API. Thirteen of the 42 patients underwent both pre- and postoperative assessments. Six of these patients underwent additional procedures such as thromboendarterectomy or profundaplasty on the anastomotic site of the donor limb, and the other 7 patients had no additional procedures performed. A decrease in API after exercise was prominent in the patients who had not undergone any additional procedures, in the postoperative stage (p less than 0.01). Thus, when performing femoro-femoral bypass, improving poor runoff in the donor limb by carrying out intraoperative additional procedures should be taken into consideration, as any imbalance of peripheral resistance must be kept to an absolute minimum.