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Histomechanical Compatibility Of Coronary Artery Bypass Grafts, Colton J. Kostelnik

Theses and Dissertations

Coronary artery disease is a localized form of atherosclerosis that can severely restrict blood flow to the heart often requiring a surgical intervention known as coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) to reestablish perfusion to this essential circulation. To some extent, the selection of the autograft tissue is at the surgeon’s discretion with factors such as stenosis location and the existing tissue’s pathological state contributing to a choice that could be deterministic in surgical outcomes. Many post-operative complications and premature graft failures originate from graft-target tissue incompatibilities and altered blood flow patterns. We hypothesize that mechanical mismatching between the graft material …