Presented herein are the outcomes of a total of 80 operations of femoropopliteal grafting above the knee-joint fissure, carried out using a vascular prosthesis made of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) in patients diagnosed with atherosclerotic lesions of the arteries of the lower extremities over the period between February 1995 and December 2005 at the Department of Vascular Surgery of the A. V. Vishnevsky Institute of Surgery of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. Fifty percent of the patients were operated on for grade II B ischemia, while 13.7% of the patients suffered from grade III ischaemia of the lower limb, and 29 (36.3%) subjects were found to have grade IV ischaemia. The condition of the distal bed was considered <<good>> in 41.2% of the patients, being defined as <<satisfactory>> in 48.5%, and as "poor" in 10.3%. The operative intervention was carried out according to the conventionally accepted technique. 50% of the reconstructions were performed using the prosthesis 8 mm in diameter, and 50% - using that measuring 6 mm in diameter. A statistically significant impact of the diameter of the prosthesis used on the patency of the graft in the remote postoperative period was revealed: with the prosthesis 8-mm in diameter, the patency after 12, 30 and 60 months amounted to 93%, 64% and 51%, respectively, while with the transplant measuring 6 mm in diameter, these indices at the above-mentioned time intervals did not exceed 62%, 44% and 31%, respectively (P=0.004).
Adult Aged