ABSTRACT
The lumens of the sheep carotid arterial heterografts had closed by the time of catheterization 6 months after operation; at necropsy both grafts were totally occluded at their coronary and aortic ends and their media and adventitia were infiltrated by granulomatous inflammatory cells. Examination of previous reports describing heterografts for vascular reconstruction or bypass in both man and experimental animals and observations in our patient suggest that heterografts are unsatisfactory as aortocoronary bypass conduits. For more than 50 years numerous attempts at using arterial heterografts and homografts as vascular transplants met repeated failure. Recently Rosenberg et al. have developed a newer method of preparing bovine carotid arterial heterografts and their technique has been applied in a few patients with apparently good results. To our knowledge, there is no reported experience in man or animals with use of modified bovine carotid heterografts as aortocoronary bypass conduits. Glutaraldehyde-fixed vascular heterografts.
