Clinical use of low porosity woven ultrafine polyester fiber grafts

A woven fabric graft made of ultrafine polyester fibers (UFPF) (Toray Graft, water porosity: 100 ml/min/cm2:120 mm Hg H2O) was clinically applied in 81 cases (28 thoracic aortic aneurysms, 6 thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysms, 42 abdominal aortic aneurysms, and 5 atherosclerotic obstructions of the peripheral arteries). Eight patients died after surgery due to causes unrelated to the graft. The other 73 patients were in good condition after surgery. For operations requiring extracorporeal circulation, the graft was presealed with human albumin. For the abdominal aortic aneurysms, the graft was preclotted in situ with nonheparinized autoblood after the completion of the proximal anastomosis. It took about 2 min to complete the preclotting. A nonsealed graft was used for the reconstruction of peripheral arteries for the intraaortic balloon pumping procedure. The graft was easy to handle. There was no cut edge fraying problem with the graft in any direction of cutting. Even after presealing, the graft was soft and pliable enough to enable easy adaptation and anastomosis. Just after implantation, bleeding was minimal from the graft wall, anastomotic sites, and suture pores, and it stopped spontaneously. These clinical data showed that the woven UFPF graft exhibited both easy handling despite in spite of low porosity and safe application in the reconstruction of arterial systems even under totally heparinized conditions during extracorporeal circulation.