Graft failure after CABG

[mattychd]

Hi,

I wonder if anyone here has ever had a graft fail after their bypass surgery. I unfortunately did.

I had a quad bypass 9 weeks ago and all seemed to be going ok when 2 weeks after surgery I had really bad chest pain that lasted about 3 hours. I went to hospital, they confirmed a heart attack and further tests revealed a failed graft.

I spent a few days in hospital and then sent home. It set my recovery back a bit and I spent the next couple of weeks mainly sleeping and then started my recovery again.

Apparently it’s fully failed so I’m down to a triple bypass. They didn’t believe it could randomly become viable again and the only thing they could have done was to stent it but they didn’t think in this case it would work so they left it.

I just wanted to know if I’m the only one on here and how long before other people had a failure and whether more than one graft had failed. In the back of my mind I wonder if there’s a domino effect?

Thanks,

Matt

[Chappychap]

Hello Matt, welcome to the forum.

Unfortunately you're not alone in having grafts fail. Estimates vary but some accounts have up to 20% of grafts failing within the first two years, although my surgeon was at pains to emphasise those figures are based on previous operations and the very latest surgical techniques have improved the odds somewhat.

One piece of good news though is that the most important of all your four grafts will most likely have been done using the mammary artery (the other three will have used veins, most likely from your leg). The mammary artery is the absolute gold standard. For reasons that aren't fully understood it's very resistant to calcification in the first place, and it then delivers an almost bomb proof performance when used for CABG. Unfortunately there's only one, but you can take some comfort that it's now in place where it can give you the greatest possible benefit.

Good luck!

[fit4walks]

Hi Matt,

A similar thing happened to me, but it was 6 months after my surgery (CABGx4). One of the bypasses had blocked within this time, even after taking all the meds, doing the exercises and eating healthy ---no salt, no meat, no sugar, mainly fruit and veg. The consultant gave me several reasons for what could have caused it:

1. The graft had already microscopic disease

2. The graft was not able to withstand the blood pressure, which caused lesions that then caused the stenosis.

Whatever the reason, life goes on. Although I do think about it from time to time, especially when I face the things I can't do now that I was used to. I still keep my hopes up that, after this COVID melarky, I will be able to travel the world, albeit with some adjustments.

Best of Luck!