Intraoperative graft verification in coronary surgery: increased diagnostic accuracy adding high-resolution epicardial ultrasonography to transit-time flow measurement.

Di Giammarco and colleagues reported that intraoperative graft verification was significantly improved if a combination of transit-time flow measurement and epicardial echocardiography was used in comparison with transit-time flow measurement alone. The positive predictive value increased from 10% to almost 100% in an analysis of 678 grafts in 333 patients undergoing isolated CABG, reducing the rate of unnecessary graft revisions.