Compliance of small-diameter vascular grafts as a determinant of patency

Abstract

The success of small diameter vascular grafts in determining long term patency is highly limited due to the lack of compliance associated with the structures currently produced. The mismatch in compliance between the graft and the host artery has been noted as the primary cause for graft failure. Currently, there are many methods used to measure compliance, however there still exists a great deal of ambiguity in the measurements obtained by these methods. It is essential that the currently available measurement techniques be reviewed so that a simple standardized method for compliance measurement may be identified and used. The availability of such a method would lead to a significant reduction in the amount of inconsistency currently encountered by researchers when comparing compliance values.