Patients undergoing vascular surgery are at high risk of developing cardiac events in the perioperative period. The aim of the study was the evaluation of the predictive accuracy of transesophageal atrial pacing (TAP) in identifying patients at higher risk of developing major cardiac events (cardiac death, acute myocardial infarction, unstable angina, heart failure and sustained ventricular tachyarrhythmias). We studied 96 consecutive patients, 80 males and 16 females, median age 63, requiring arterial surgery (aortofemoral or aortoiliac bypass and thromboendoarterectomy, abdominal aneurysm resection and extracranial carotid thromboendoaterectomy). TAP was performed without cardioactive drugs in all patients, but one. After surgery CK and CKMB serial assessment and ECG recording were performed daily until the seventh postoperative day. Preoperatively all patients were admitted to the Intensive Care Unit and submitted to haemodynamic monitoring with Swan-Ganz catheter at least for 72 hours. Three patients did not undergo surgery because of severe ST depression during TAP. Thus, 93 patients (96.8% of the series) were the subject of this report. In the postoperative period only two events (2.1% of the patients) were recorded, one relapsing acute myocardial infarction and one ventricular fibrillation, both in patients with negative TAP. No death occurred. Our study shows a very low prevalence of major cardiac events.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)