Combined cardiac surgery and aneurysm of subrenal abdominal aorta

The authors explain their experience about the combined correction of cardiac pathology and infrarental aortic aneurysm repair. Seven patients of mean age of 63 years underwent simultaneous myocardial revascularization (5 cases) or aortic valve replacement (2 cases) and abdominal aortic aneurysm repair with bifurcated vascular prosthesis (6 cases) and tubular prosthesis (1 case) between 1987 and 1995. Cardiac operation was performed first with a mean number of 2.4 coronary artery by-pass grafts, with a mean by-pass time of 51 min, and a mean abdominal aortic cross-clamp time of 46 min. The mean total operating time was 231 min. All patients were managed postoperatively in the cardiac intensive care unit with a mean duration of 2.5 days and were transfused with a mean of 5 units of donor blood. The mean postoperative hospitalization was 9 days. One patient died for complication of postoperative myocardial infarction. The authors conclude that combined cardiac operation and abdominal aortic aneurysm repair is feasible in carefully selected patients.