Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery in Peritoneal Dialysis Patients

Over the last two years, in the Toronto Western Hospital, five chronic renal failure patients suffering from severe symptomatic ischemic heart disease, who had been maintained on peritoneal dialysis underwent coronary artery bypass surgery. One of the five had simultaneous mitral valve replacement. Of the five, four survived with substantial improvement in symptoms, the fifth died soon after the operation. This paper describes the management of these patients and the dialysis technique used in the preand postoperative periods. Coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) is effective in the treatment of symptoms of ischemic heart disease and under some circumstances it seems to improve life expectancy (1–4). Cardiovascular disease, which frequently is associated with chronic renal failure (CRF) remains the most common cause of death in dialysis patients (5, 6). Several workers have reported successful cardiac surgery in hemodialysis patients (7–10); however, we know of no relevant literature on similar operations in those maintained on peritoneal dialysis. During the last 5 years there has been a considerable increase in the number of CRF patients receiving peritoneal dialysis (11), and this paper describes five of our patients who underwent bypass operations while maintained on this fonn of therapy.