[Expedient technique of aortic annular enlargement in aortic valve replacement]

The extended aortoplasty through the aortic annulus at the posterolateral part, Nicks and co-workers have reported, is applied in case of aortic valve replacement for the narrow aortic annulus, while we have often encountered some problems of bleeding from suture lines of aortoplasty or a left atrial wall defect of the atrial attachment at the aortic root. We report an idea for resolving these problems by means of using a patch for the aortoplasty lined with an equine pericardium on the inner side which has an excess part inferiorly folded up to the outer side. This technique may be effective for hemostasis of suture lines and easier to close the defect of the left atrium with the pericardial excess part.