A femoropopliteal (fem-pop) bypass is surgery to change the flow of your blood so it goes around narrowed or blocked blood vessels.
To do this surgery, your doctor will use something called a graft. The graft can be a vein taken from another place in your leg. Or it can be a human-made graft.
The doctor sews the graft onto your femoral and popliteal arteries. Then your blood goes through this new graft vessel instead of the narrowed or blocked one.
Fem-pop bypass is for people who have narrowed or blocked femoral or popliteal arteries, which are arteries in the legs. Usually the blockage must be causing significant symptoms or be limb-threatening before bypass surgery is considered.
You may be asleep during the surgery. Or you may get medicine to numb your lower body and prevent pain.
The doctor will make a cut (incision) in your thigh. The doctor may make another cut in the inside of your calf just below the knee.
If one of your veins is being used for a graft, the doctor will make another cut in your leg to remove this vein.
The doctor then connects one end of the graft to the femoral artery in your thigh. The other end is connected to the popliteal artery above or below your knee.
After the graft is in place and the blood is flowing through it, the doctor will close the incisions with stitches or staples.
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