Atherosclerosis and Healing Aberrations in Clinical and Experimental Vascular Grafts

The use of vascular grafts to replace or bypass diseased vessels that have occlusions or aneurysms is now a common procedure in surgery. Over the past 3 decades, an estimated one million patients have received these grafts which include both biologic and synthetic materials as vascular substitutes. The pioneering studies of Carrel and Guthrie in 1906 ¹ demonstrated the first use of autogenous veins as substitute blood vessles. Subsequently, the use of other biologic materials including cephalic and saphenous veins, bovine vessels, homograft arteries, and umbilical veins were followed by the introduction of synthetic materials and the history of their use has recently been reviewed. ^{2 , 3}