What is fem pop bypass surgery?
Fem pop bypass can relieve pain and swelling from severe peripheral arterial disease (PAD) and critical limb ischemia (serious PAD causing severely reduced blood flow). Who Qualifies for Fem Pop Bypass Surgery?
How long do bypasses stay open?
If a patient has a LIMA bypass, it is almost 90% likely to remain open, even 10 years after the operation, and that is just great. For the other blockages where an SVG graft is used, the bypasses are about 50% likely to remain open at 10 years.
What is a femoral popliteal bypass?
Femoral popliteal bypass. The healthcare provider accesses the femoral artery through a large incision in the upper leg. A vein taken from another area in your leg is attached above and below the blockage. This is called a graft. The blood is rerouted through the graft around the blockage.
How long does it take to recover from Femoropopliteal bypass surgery?
Femoropopliteal & Femorodistal Bypass. If there is any swelling or discharge from the wound when you are at home, please contact your GP. You may feel tired for some weeks after the operation but this should gradually improve as time goes by. Most people are back to work six weeks after the operation.

How long does a fem fem bypass last?
Primary patency rates of femorofemoral bypasses are estimated to be in the range of 65-70% at 5 years.
How long does leg bypass surgery last?
A peripheral bypass surgery usually lasts 3 to 4 hours, but the preparation and recovery time may add several hours. The procedure is usually performed in the operating room (OR).
What happens after fem pop bypass?
You stay in the hospital for a few days after a femoral popliteal bypass surgery. You'll need to take a few weeks off work. Your leg will be very sore at first, but then your leg wounds will heal. Most people fully recover within four to 12 weeks.
How long is femoral artery bypass?
This surgery usually takes 3 to 4 hours. Femoro-femoral bypass: Incisions (cuts) are made in your groin area. One end of the graft is attached to the main artery in your good leg. The other end is attached to the main artery in your bad leg.
How serious is bypass surgery on leg?
Bypass surgery on your legs has all the dangers of major surgery. It takes two to three weeks for the wound to heal. Risks include infection, bleeding from the wound, and complications from anesthesia, such as trouble breathing or pneumonia.
Why do leg bypasses fail?
After leg bypass using vein graft, vein graft patency is threatened by subsequent development of stenosis of the vein graft itself or at the anastomotic site in up to 20% of the cases, which is usually due to intimal hyperplasia or progression of native arterial disease [1-3].
Can bypass be done twice?
There is no specific limit of times that a person can undergo bypass surgery.
Does bypass surgery ever fail?
Approximately 50% of saphenous vein grafts (SVGs) fail by 5 to 10 years post-coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) and between 20–40% fail within the first year (1,2). While SVG failure can sometimes be silent, when symptomatic events occur, SVG percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is often performed.
Can bypass surgery be done more than once?
Patients who have had a coronary bypass and valve replacement are enjoying longer, healthy lives. Over time, though, even successful valve replacements and coronary artery bypasses may need a re-operation. Almost one third of the heart surgery operations we do here are repeat procedures.
How long do bypass arteries last?
How long do bypass grafts last? People tend to do very well after heart bypass and most get a good 15 years before needing another intervention, which at that point would almost always be having a stent inserted. Redoing heart bypass could also be an option if stenting weren't suitable.
Is femoral bypass major surgery?
This is a major surgical procedure performed under anesthesia via incisions in the leg. Careful assessment of the risks and benefits prior to surgery, as well as diligent medical, anesthetic, and surgical care, insures the best outcomes following leg bypass operations.
What happens to leg after bypass surgery?
You can expect your leg to be swollen at first. This is a normal part of recovery and may last 2 or 3 months. You may need to stay in the hospital for 3 to 5 days. You will need to take it easy for 2 to 6 weeks at home.
How many hours does bypass surgery last?
Coronary artery bypass graft surgery usually lasts 3 to 6 hours. But it may take longer depending on how many blood vessels are being attached. Blood vessels can be taken from your leg (saphenous vein), inside your chest (internal mammary artery), or your arm (radial artery).
What happens to leg after bypass surgery?
You can expect your leg to be swollen at first. This is a normal part of recovery and may last 2 or 3 months. You may need to stay in the hospital for 3 to 5 days. You will need to take it easy for 2 to 6 weeks at home.
How long after bypass surgery can you walk?
Recovering from a coronary artery bypass graft procedure takes time and everyone recovers at slightly different speeds. Generally, you should be able to sit in a chair after 1 day, walk after 3 days, and walk up and down stairs after 5 or 6 days. Most people make a full recovery within 12 weeks of the operation.
What Is Femoral Popliteal Bypass Surgery?
Femoral popliteal bypass surgery, or fem pop bypass, creates a new route for blood flow to your lower leg. During the leg bypass, your surgeon places a graft, a replacement for the damaged artery. The graft may be a tiny synthetic (human-made) tube.
Who Qualifies for Fem Pop Bypass Surgery?
At Penn Medicine, we recommend other options before open surgery whenever possible. Medical management (such as medicine and compression stockings) or minimally invasive endovascular procedures may be a good fit for you.
What to Expect from the Procedure
Fem pop bypass is a surgical procedure performed in the hospital. Your care team includes vascular surgeons, nurses, technicians and a vascular anesthesiologist. During the procedure:
Fem Pop Bypass for Blocked Leg Artery: The Penn Medicine Difference
At the Penn Vascular Surgery and Endovascular Therapy Program, you’ll find:
How Long Do the Effects of This Surgery Last?
For some people, fem pop bypass surgery lasts the rest of their lives. The most common complication of this surgery for peripheral artery disease is that the new graft becomes blocked. In that case, you may need an endovascular procedure or a repeat bypass.
Deep Vein Arterialization as an Alternative to Fem Pop
Some individuals with very advanced PAD and critical limb ischemia are not candidates for endovascular or surgical bypass techniques. For these patients, Penn Medicine vascular surgeons offer deep vein arterialization (DVA).
What is a femoral popliteal bypass?
A femoral popliteal bypass is an operation to bypass the blocked portion of the artery in the leg using a piece of another blood vessel. The following information will help explain the process of a femoralpopliteal bypass. Before bypass surgery, there are a number of tests that need to be done.
What are the tests to do before bypass surgery?
These are of two types: those to assess your general fitness and those to assess your suitability for different types of aneurysm surgery. Tests of fitness and suit ability are normally done before a decision to operate is made.
How to bypass a vein?
This is made of plastic and may be one of several types. The bypass tube is joined to the artery at groin level and again to the artery below with very fine permanent stitches. The graft will sometimes lie deep within the leg, and sometimes just beneath the skin. If it is beneath the skin (in situ vein bypass) the pulse in it can easily be felt. At the end of the operation, the incisions are all closed, either with dissolving stitches, which do not need to be removed, or with a non-dissolving stitch or metal clips which will normally be removed after about ten days.
Where is the incision for a calf bypass?
Occasionally, the incision is lower in the calf, and may then be on either side. The tube used to perform the bypass will normally be the principal skin vein of the leg. It is called the long saphenous vein and it runs up the inner side of the leg from ankle to groin.
Where is the drip placed after a femoral artery surgery?
For all three options, a drip is placed into a vein in your forearm to give you some fluids during and following surgery. The operation. The blocked artery must be exposed both above and below the blockage. A vertical incision about 10cm (4inches) long is made in the groin to expose the common femoral artery.
How long does spinal anaesthesia last?
With a spinal anaesthetic, you can feel nothing from waist downward on the operation side. The leg is paralysed. This anaesthetic lasts for about 2-2½ hours.
How long does it take to be asleep after anaesthesia?
The anaesthetic is injected through the needle and you will be asleep within a few seconds. If you are to be awake, you will have a small tube placed in your back. This is called a spinal or an epidural.
How long does a LIMA bypass last?
Lets summarize the article so far. If a patient has a LIMA bypass, it is almost 90% likely to remain open, even 10 years after the operation, and that is just great. For the other blockages where an SVG graft is used, the bypasses are about 50% likely to remain open at 10 years. If grafts go down its not necessarily a disaster, there are often good treatment options.
What Do We Do If The Bypasses Close Off?
So far we have said that while LIMA-LAD grafts are an excellent option with great long term results, vein grafts are unfortunately no so good, and have an almost 1 in 2 chance of going down within several years of surgery. The good news is that the LIMA-LAD graft is the most important. And although the vein grafts may go down more frequently, if they do go down the chance of needing another heart operation is very, very low. If required, treatment can typically be undertaken using minimally invasive methods such as using stents.
How to treat a blocked bypass?
Some bypass graft blockages will present with symptoms such as chest pain, shortness of breath or heart failure, in which case further evaluation can be undertaken and the decision made on the best treatment depending on the results of tests such as stress tests and angiograms. Finally some of these bypass blockages may present as a heart attack in which case often the blockages can be treated through the use of stents and medicines.
How long after a vein graft can you close?
The LIMA has a remarkable long patency rate of up to 90% as described above, however studies of vein grafts have shown that up to 40% of vein grafts may be closed at just 1 year after surgery, with longer term studies looking at up to 10 years after bypass also suggesting that around 40-50% of vein grafts will block off, which is remarkably high.
What is a femorofemoral bypass?
A femorofemoral bypass graft is an extraanatomic vascular bypass usually used to treat unilateral iliac artery occlusion. Extraanatomic bypass grafts are preferred in patients with unilateral iliac disease, patients who are poor candidates for surgery, patients with severe scarring from prior vascular procedures, patients with current abdominal or groin infections, or patients in whom one limb of an aortobifemoral bypass graft is occluded.
What is the primary patency rate of a femorofemoral bypass?
Reported primary patency rates of femorofemoral bypass are highly variable and range from 50% to 90% at 5 years, perhaps reflecting differences in patient selection criteria. 56 For example, under ideal circumstances with virtually normal iliofemoral artery inflow and patent superficial femoral artery outflow, primary patency may exceed 90%, compared with 50% when the superficial femoral artery is occluded. With close surveillance, reported secondary patency rates may exceed 90% at 4 years. 48 In patients with a patent superficial femoral artery, femorofemoral bypass patency rates can be expected to be similar to those for aortobifemoral bypass. 35 Hemodynamically, addition of the contralateral lower extremity to the runoff below the donor iliac artery results in increased volume and velocity of blood flow through the donor iliac system. This may result in significant dilatation of the donor iliac artery over time. 57 If the donor iliac artery is hemodynamically normal, it is capable of providing adequate flow to both limbs without creating a “steal” phenomenon, which becomes a clinically important issue only if the donor iliac is stenotic. 58
How to do a cross over bypass?
The cross-over bypass can be constructed either by using the contralateral saphenous vein or a prosthetic graft ( Figure 60.1 ). The donor vein is exposed and then rotated at the saphenofemoral junction to cross to the other side (classic Palma technique 39) or used as a free femoro-femoral graft. This free saphenous graft appears to do better than rotation of the vein avoiding kinking at the saphenofemoral junction. 9 The autogenous cross-femoral venous bypass appears to be less thrombogenetic with better cumulative patency rate than prosthetic grafts (at 2 years, 83% and 54%, respectively). 21 The cross-over reconstruction has been reported to be durable with good symptom relief, so called “clinical” and venographic patency ranging from 44 to 100% with a follow-up of five years. 1,7,9,12–14,18,19,21,36,50 Most series have small numbers of patients with inconsistent clinical and venographic follow-up (see Tables 60.1 and 60.2 ).
What determines the patency of a femoral bypass?
The degree of disease in the native donor and recipient arteries typically determines the long-term patency of the graft. Disease in the donor iliac artery can result in significant flow reduction to both limbs, and in severe cases it can lead to flow reversal in the graft. The presence of superficial femoral artery occlusion reduces the duration of graft patency as well as the likelihood of achieving symptomatic relief. Complications of femorofemoral bypass placement can include graft thrombosis, femoral steal phenomenon, anastomotic pseudoaneurysms, and anastomotic stenoses.
How many patients did AbuRahma treat?
AbuRahma et al. 86 treated 41 patients with bilateral iliac stenoses using combined femorofemoral bypass and iliac angioplasty with selective stenting. Initial success, patency, and limb salvage and complication rates were significantly different depending on the length of the treated iliac lesion. For iliac stenoses <5 cm 1- and 3- year patency rates were 96% and 85%, whereas for iliac stenoses >5 cm patency rates dropped to 46% and 31%, respectively.
What is the procedure for a donor femoral artery?
Arteriography is typically performed by catheterizing the donor femoral artery, but other approaches include the axillary artery, the translumbar aorta, and direct graft puncture. Due to the tendency for complications to occur at the anastomoses, it is important to obtain images in different projections to optimally profile these regions.
Is femorofemoral bypass sterile?
Femorofemoral bypass is particularly applicable to high-risk patients as it can be performed under regional or even local anesthesia. The lower abdomen and upper thighs should be included in the sterile field to allow access to the external iliac arteries, as well as the superficial and deep femoral arteries.
How long does a vein bypass last?
In general, a vein bypass in the leg can be expected to last five years or longer in 60 to 70 percent of patients, although about one-quarter to one-third will require additional procedures to maintain the function of these grafts. Long-term follow-up, with regularly scheduled vascular examinations and ultrasound studies of the graft, is absolutely essential to achieve maximal benefit.
What are the factors that determine the success of a bypass graft?
The short and long-term success of the procedure is most closely linked to two factors: 1) the material employed for the bypass graft itself and 2) the quality of the arteries in the lower leg to which the graft is attached.
Is leg bypass surgery dangerous?
Like all surgical procedures, leg bypass surgery carries significant risks including heart attacks, blood clots, infections, and even death in 2 to 3 percent of patients. Patients with advanced PAD have a high frequency of significant heart disease, so a thorough evaluation for cardiac problems and a careful review ...
Is bypass surgery successful?
The other major complications are related to the leg itself, and include the risk of failure of the bypass and wound healing problems. Overall, bypass surgery is immediately successful in 90 to 95 percent of cases.