During resecting of the descending thoracic aneurysms, transient bypass circuit using prosthetic vessel is very useful especially because of its no need of heparin. We made an axillo-femoral bypass tube with non-thrombogenic material to omit troublesome suturing technique. Under usinq this tube IABP balloon was inserted into the abdominal aorta to the point just beneath the diaphragma, for changing non-pulsatile flow to a more effective pulsatile one. Six patients were operated using this method with five survivors. The single death was that of a patient with postoperative respiratory failure. IABP balloon was able to insert easily without any complication in patients of thoracic aneurysm. Insertion of IABP balloon to them is not thought as contraindication.
We also made a pulsatile axillo-femoral bypass kit which includes of PBP apparatus with two ball valves at the inlet and outlet side of the apparatus. When this kit was driven by PBP, a regurgitant flow about 30% of the forward flow was found because of the property of the valves. In experiments on dogs, propagation of pulsatile flow was limited by the resistance at the site of cannulation tube.
