Contralateral external carotid-to-middle cerebral artery graft using the saphenous vein. Case report.

A variation of the extracranial-intracranial arterial bypass, using a long saphenous vein graft, is presented. The saphenous vein graft was inserted from the contralateral external carotid artery to the distal middle cerebral artery to replace the common and internal carotid arteries in a patient with a large neck tumor that invaded the common and internal carotid arteries, the esophagus, and the trachea. The patient had a positive balloon Matas' test. The saphenous vein was covered with an artificial vascular graft so that turning of the head or movement of the mandible did not displace or compress the graft. A large volume of flow began immediately after anastomosis. A description of the case and the operative technique is presented herein.