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Eur J Cardiothorac Surg 2005;28:781
© 2005 Elsevier Science NL

Letter to the Editor

Reply to Raja

Why skeletonized BIMA for unstable angina?

^a Department of Cardiac Surgery, University of Florence, Cattedra e Scuola di Specializzazione in Cardiochirurgia, Viale Morgagni, 85, 50134 Careggi, Firenze, Italy
^b Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA

Received 8 August 2005; accepted 10 August 2005.

^_* Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 338 9855782; fax: +39 55 4277458. (Email: mbonacchi@unifi.it).

Key Words: Coronary arteries • Free flow • Internal mammary arteries

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

We appreciate the comments of Dr Shahzad G. Raja about our paper concerning the use of skeletonized bilateral internal mammary arteries (BIMA) for urgent/emergent surgical revascularization in unstable angina (UA) [1]. Skeletonization of internal thoracic arteries for myocardial revascularization offers several proven advantages such as decreased incidence of sternal wound infection, greater length, and multiple arterial anastomoses [2,3].

In our paper, we have demonstrated that this technique can be safely used also for urgent/emergent surgical revascularization in unstable angina (UA) since does not increase operative mortality but improves late outcomes.

Global ischemic time plays a very important role . . . [Full Text of this Article]