Abstract
A 73-year-old woman who visited her local physician with a principal complaint of pallor in her left finger, which two months after this first visit progressed into chills and weakness in her left upper arm, and she was referred to us when the symptoms started to interfere with her daily activities. We could not feel an arterial pulse in either of her upper arms, and since bilateral axillary artery occlusions were detected by angiography, a left subclavian-brachial artery bypass procedure was performed using the left basilic vein in January 2001. The symptoms in her left upper arm improved after surgery, but the weakness in the right upper arm became significant. As a result, a similar bypass procedure in her right upper arm was performed in March of the same year. The blood pressure ratio of the upper/lower arms before and after surgery was right 0.33→0.83 and left 0.41→1.01, and nothing prevented the patient from performing her daily activities after surgery. In addition, an improvement in the patient’s quality of life was also observed. The etiology of this disease was considered to be nonspecific vasculitis, and long-term patency was achieved.
