Occlusive disease associated with popliteal aneurysms: impact on long term graft patency.

Objective: Correlate graft patency and limb salvage outcomes following popliteal aneurysm repair with the extent of tibial occlusive disease.
Experimental Design: Retrospective study with a mean follow-up of 36 months (range, 2-96 months).
Setting: Institutional teaching hospital.
Patients: Of 20 popliteal aneurysms among 16 patients undergoing repair, 75% were associated with preoperative tibial vessel occlusion. Normal, three vessel infrapopliteal runoff was present in 5 patients, two vessels in 7 patients, and one or no vessels in 8 patients. Fifty percent of limbs were asymptomatic, while the remainder suffered from a variety of ischemic symptoms.
Interventions: Eighteen of the 20 aneurysms were repaired with femoropopliteal bypass grafts, and two femoral-tibial bypasses were performed. Autogenous saphenous vein was used in 18 cases (10 in situ, 8 reversed) and PTFE in two short segment femoral-popliteal bypasses.
Measures: Graft patency was determined by presence of a palpable pulse, the re-establishment of normal ankle-brachial indices, or duplex scanning. Patency and limb salvage rates were estimated using life table analysis by the Kaplan-Meier method.
Results: Preoperative symptoms did not correlate with tibial runoff, except in two patients presenting with acute thrombosis and ischemia. Cumulative graft patency by life table analysis was not different for either good (2-3 vessels, N-12) or poor (0-1 vessels, N-8) runoff. Overall primary patency at 60 months was 73%, and cumulative secondary patency was 100% with no limbs lost at 60 months.
Conclusions: Concomitant distal arterial occlusive disease is frequently associated with popliteal aneurysms, yet did not appear to substantially impact either long-term graft patency or limb salvage.