Surgical Myocardial Revascularization in a Sub-Saharan African Country: Indications and Results

Introduction: Despite the advances of interventional catheterization, surgery remains the treatment of choice for some coronary lesions. Objective: To report the indications and results of surgical revascularization of the myocardium at the Abidjan Heart Institute. Patient and Methods: This is a retrospective study of patients with coronary insufficiency who underwent surgical myocardial revascularization between March 2014 and May 2020 in the Cardiovascular Surgery Department of the Abidjan Heart Institute. There were 17 patients, 11 of whom were men (64.7%) and 6 women (35.3%), The mean age of the patients was 57.5 years ± 8.8. All patients were symptomatic with disabling angina in class III of the Canadian Cardiac Society (CCS). This sym- ptomatology had been evolving on average for 5 years and 6 patients had a history of acute coronary syndrome, 2 of whom had undergone prior angioplasty. Coronary angiography revealed mono-truncated (17.6%), bi-truncated (23.5%) and tri-truncated (58.8%) lesions. Results: The patients were operated under cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) 15 cases (88.2%) and off pump in 2 cases (11.8%). They underwent a single bypass in 23.5% of cases, a double bypass in 47.1% of cases and a triple bypass in 29.4% of cases. We observed 3 cases of complications (17.6%), namely transient acute renal failure, mediastinitis and postoperative bleeding. The operative and hospital mortality was nil. After a mean follow-up of 3 ± 1.8 years, all patients were asymptomatic with a negative stress test at last check-up. Conclusion: Our experience has allowed us to demonstrate the safe performance of surgical myocardial revascularization in our patients with satisfactory and encouraging results.