Objectives: To completely excise a malignant tumor which invades carotid artery walls, the resection and reconstruction of the carotid artery is essentially required. In most of the cases, interposition graft using a saphenous vein has been performed, however the vessel caliber discrepancy between a common carotid artery and the saphenous vein can result in a problem on surgical technique. We have introduced and evaluated a new titanium hemoclip tailing method to overcome vessel caliber discrepancy in interposition saphenous vein graft for carotid artery resection in the treatment of head and neck cancers.
Method: After carotid artery resection, the calibers of the proximal common carotid artery and the vein were compared, and an orifice of the common carotid artery was gradually reduced to a little larger than or the same size as the orifice of the vein by using the titanium hemostatic clip. Subsequently, the common carotid artery was connected to the vein through anastomosis. The same method was also applied to the distal anastomosis site. There after, the vessels were connected through the anastomosis, and a circulation was restored by releasing a vascular clamp. Then, a titanium hemostatic clip-applied redundant portion on the outside of carotid artery was sutured by the blanket edge suture method, using 6-0 Prolene.
Results: We have experienced this method in two patients with recurrent squamous cell carcinoma and neuroblostoma, respectively. The interposition saphenous vein graft of these patients was found to maintain good patency on the follow up angiography after one year, and they had no specific vascular complication, such as atherosclerosis.
Conclusion: This method made it possible to simply perform the interposition saphenous vein graft (ISVG) within a short time and, therefore, was very useful for shortening the duration to block circulation.
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