Publications by authors named "J Gaer"

Importance: The Ross procedure as treatment for adults with aortic valve disease (AVD) has been the subject of renewed interest.

Objective: To evaluate the long-term clinical and echocardiographic outcomes following the Ross procedure for the treatment of adults with AVD.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This post hoc analysis of a randomized clinical trial included adult patients (age <69 years) who underwent a Ross procedure for the treatment of AVD, including those with active endocarditis, rheumatic AVD, decreased ejection fraction, and previous cardiac surgery.

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The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic disrupted all surgical specialties significantly and exerted additional pressures on the overburdened United Kingdom (UK) National Health Service. Healthcare professionals in the UK have had to adapt their practice. In particular, surgeons have faced organisational and technical challenges treating patients who carried higher risks, were more urgent and could not wait for prehabilitation or optimisation before their intervention.

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Objectives: In addition to excess mortality due to COVID-19, the pandemic has been characterised by excess mortality due to non-COVID diagnoses and consistent reports of patients delaying seeking medical treatment. This study seeks to compare the outcomes of cardiac surgery during and before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design: Our institutional database was interrogated retrospectively to identify all patients undergoing one of three index procedures during the first six months of the pandemic and the corresponding epochs of the previous five years.

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Objective: The study objective was to investigate the long-term survival of patients undergoing xenograft versus homograft full root aortic valve replacement.

Methods: A total of 166 patients requiring aortic valve surgery were randomized to undergo the Freestyle (Medtronic Inc, Minneapolis, Minn) bioprosthesis (N = 90) or a homograft (N = 76) full root aortic valve replacement between 1997 and 2005 in a single institution. Six patients randomly assigned to the homograft crossed over to the Freestyle bioprosthesis because of the unavailability of suitably sized homografts.

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