Hybrid therapy for rapid enlargement of hibernating coronary arteriovenous fistulas.

Abstract

The use of hybrid therapy for recurrent multiple coronary arteriovenous fistulas in a 56-year-old woman is reported. The patient underwent surgical closure of a coronary arteriovenous fistula of the right coronary artery under cardiopulmonary bypass at 47 years of age. Reoperation was required 9 years later for recurrence of the same fistula. It was divided under a beating heart. Early postoperative angiography showed complete occlusion of the right coronary fistula. However, hibernating fistulas of the left circumflex artery, which had been left untouched because of insignificant shunt with no remarkable change for 9 years, increased in size rapidly. Transcatheter embolization was successfully performed for these residual fistulas.