Design
Case series and literature review.

Setting
University of Vienna Medical School in Austria.

Patients/Methods
Personal experience with 34 consecutive patients and 125 cases published since 1982 with respect to patient data, patency, and survival are compared and jointly analyzed retrospectively.

Interventions
Patients received obturator canal bypass for lesions of the pelvic or common femoral vessels precluding orthotopic reconstruction.

Main Outcome Measures
The rates of patient survival, limb salvage, and graft patency were analyzed.

Results
The postoperative mortality rate in the present series was 14.7%. The limb salvage rate after 5 years was 76.5%. One- and 5-year secondary patency rates were 75.3% and 54.9%, respectively. All grafts in patients without atherosclerosis were patent at a median of 34 months. For 57 cases documented in the literature, 1- and 5-year patency rates were 70.8% and 59.7%, respectively. Combined analysis of 90 obturator canal bypasses revealed rates of 72.7% and 56.9% of patent grafts at 1- and 5-years, respectively.

Conclusions
The use of obturator canal bypass is recommended in deep groin infections and especially in patients with lesions of the pelvic vessels due to other occlusive vascular disease.

(Arch Surg. 1994;129:718-722)