[Surgical treatment of aortic stenosis in small aortic annulus]

The purpose of this work is to demonstrate that the aortic enlargement procedures, first described for patients with small aortic annulus, are reproducible with excellent results. A retrospective revision of 72 cases in which an enlargement procedure was done, with consideration regarding the relationship between valve size and patient body surface area, in order to avoid prosthesis-patient mismatch, was done. We consider the immediate mortality of the group, differentiating the cardiac mortality, concluding with other authors that body surface areas between 1.3 and 1.7 m2 should receive aortic prosthesis larger than #23, which will eventually improve the late outcome of this population. We demonstrate that the aortic annular enlargement procedures can be safely done in our hospital, with a slight increase in mortality during the learning phase, but great benefit afterwards.