The surgical management of patients with concomitant critical coronary artery disease (CAD) and surgically resectable cancer is controversial. We evaluated 19 patients who underwent concomitant coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) and curative operation for cancer of the stomach in 9 patients, the colon in 4, the lung in 4, and the breast in 2. Each cancer operation was performed under stable hemodynamics without any serious bleeding tendency, immediately after CABG with an average of 2.5 +/- 0.8 grafts. There were no operative deaths and no incidences of perioperative myocardial infarction. Postoperative complications developed in three of the patients with lung cancer: respiratory dysfunction caused by phrenic nerve paralysis in two and mediastinitis in one. During the mean follow-up period of 33 +/- 23 months, 5 patients died of recurrent cancer or non-cardiac disease; however, all 19 patients remained free from any postoperative cardiac events and their quality of life apparently improved. This experience suggests that such simultaneous correction would be safe and beneficial in carefully selected patients who have surgically correctable CAD and potentially curable cancer.