Dear Sirs,
The BJC recently published a valuable article demonstrating that the right radial pathway can be used to display the left internal mammalian artery (LIMA).1
The use of the right radial pathway in LIMA imaging in coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) patients is a viable alternative for patients in whom the ipsilateral radial and femoral artery pathway cannot be used. Medical advances continue in the fields of angiography and other invasive procedures. Such innovative publications support these developments.
Since 2010, LIMA and other bypass grafts have been visualised through the right radial artery. We would like to highlight to your readers an article by Balaban Y et al., comparing imaging methods for LIMA retrospectively.2 This article was not cited in the BJC article.
We showed that LIMA imaging and other bypass pass grafting procedures can be performed safely and satisfactorily through the right radial artery. In this report on 442 cases, the right radial artery was used to display LIMA in 120 patients.2
By citing our article, we hope to increase the scientific value of graft imaging via the right radial artery.
Conflicts of interest
None declared.
Editors’ note
The article by Balaban et al. was not published when the article by Wa and Lim was submitted to us in December 2018 but had just been published before our publication.
Yakup Balaban
Associate Professor
Department of Cardiology, VM Medicalpark Kocaeli Hospital, Başiskele, Kocaeli, Turkey.
References
1. Wa MELK, Lim PO. A simple technique for IMA graft angiography and PCI using contralateral radial access. Br J Cardiol 2019;26:110–113. https://dx.doi.org/10.5837/bjc.2019.024
2. Balaban Y, Akbaş MH, Akbaş ML, Özerdem A. Efficacy and safety of coronary artery bypass graft angiography with right transradial access versus left transradial access and femoral access: a retrospective comparative study. Braz J Cardiovasc Surg 2019;341:48–56. https://dx.doi.org/10.21470/1678-9741-2018-0270
