Does a new method of intraoperative hydraulic impedance measurement provide valuable prognostic information about infrainguinal graft patency?
This method provides reliable prognostic information regarding graft patency and opens hydraulic impedance measurement to clinical surgery. The phase lag between flow and pressure curves, as expressed by the phase angle of the first harmonic, provides significant prognostic information.
The use of blue dye should be reserved for inexperienced surgeons during their learning phase and for those patients in whom lymphoscintigraphy failed to show any uptake in the axilla.