[Surgical treatment of aortic root abscesses using a hand-made valved xenopericardial conduit]

A case is described in which a new treatment was taken to eradicate an aortic root abscess in a 56-year-old man with aortic prosthetic valve endocarditis. Debridement of all apparently infected tissue created left ventricular-aortic discontinuity, involving the orifice of the right coronary artery. A conduit of a diameter of 23 mm was made by hand with a glutaraldehyde preserved xenopericardial graft. A 21 mm St. Jude Medical prosthetic valve was sewn in it at 2 cm to its edge. The hand-made valved conduit was used to reconstruct the left ventricular outflow tract and aortic root. A saphenous vein graft was anastomosed end-to-side to the right coronary arterial system and to the conduit distal to the prosthetic valve. The aortography revealed no aortic regurgitation nor abnormalities of the conduit, such as aneurysm formation, and the coronary arteriography showed a functioning graft 5 months after surgery.