Probe endarterectomy on the beating heart for severe coronary artery disease

Abstract

Although coronary endarterectomy is a challenging procedure, its implementation might be mandatory in some cases with diffuse atherosclerotic coronary artery disease. The traditional techniques such as open, semi-closed, eversion, orificial and extraction endarterectomies have been well defined in vascular surgery, however, due to the small size of the coronary arteries, their implementation is not always possible in surgical cardiac revascularization. In this report, we describe a simple method which combines the open and closed techniques of coronary endarterectomy, in which we use the coronary probes at different sizes in order to extract and release the atheromatous plaques from coronary arteries. This technique facilitates the removal of the plaques with easy handling of the coronary probes.