Obturator Bypass Remains a Useful Option

Abstract

Background: The femoral tripod remains technically crucial in vascular surgery, as well for an elective revascularization as for an extensive approach to the arterial tree. The management of septic complications and healing disorders in this area is really challenging. Obturator bypass (OB) represents an alternative sometimes employed in this context, but few recent series were recently published. The objectives of this work were thus to evaluate the results of OB in terms of patency, morbi-mortality, healing evolution and absence of reinfection.

Methods: This was a monocentric retrospective study including all the patients treated by OB, whatever the cause, between January 2010 and December 2020. Primary outcomes were the primary and the secondary patencies. The secondary outcomes were the morbi-mortality, freedom from infection and healing.

Results: During this period, 23 OBs were carried out in 22 patients, with a majority of men (77%) whose median age was 70 years [34-87]. The indications were infection in 19 patients (86%), and iterative thrombosis in 3 patients (14%). The substitute was an arterial allograft in 82% of the cases, and the outflow was the deep femoral artery only in 14% of the cases. The median operative time was 224 min [111-391] and median blood losses were 900 mL [300-3,900]. We observed 7 systemic (32%), and 8 local complications (36%). Healing was obtained in 90% of the cases, and freedom from infection was obtained in 100% of the cases. The median duration of follow-up was 594 days [5-2,517]. One-year, 2-year and 3-year primary patency rates were 84%, 78%, and 63%, respectively. One-year, 2-year and 3-year secondary patencies were 94%, 94%, and 80%, respectively. One-month, 1-year, 2-year and 3-year survival rates were 86%, 73%, 67%, and 53%, respectively.

Conclusions: Our study showed that the OB represents a relevant alternative in the event of complex lesions of the femoral tripod, with good patency and healing rates and good infection control. On the other hand, its consequences in terms of morbi-mortality confirm that OB is a major surgery that should be used when a traditional approach is not possible.