Impact of implant technique following freestyle stentless aortic valve replacement.

Background: Stentless aortic bioprostheses have excellent hemodynamics and clinical outcomes. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether implant technique of the Freestyle aortic root bioprosthesis impacts clinical outcomes or hemodynamic performance.

Methods: The long-term multicenter study of the Freestyle stentless aortic bioprosthesis includes 500 consecutive patients implanted using the subcoronary and 162 using the full root technique.

Hemodynamic performance at rest and during exercise after aortic valve replacement: comparison of pulmonary autografts versus aortic homografts.

Background: The Ross procedure and aortic homografts have both been shown to have superior hemodynamic performance after valve replacement, but there have been few comparisons.

Methods: Sequential Doppler echocardiograms were performed up to 5 years after aortic valve replacement in 132 patients with the Ross procedure and 111 patients with an aortic homograft (AH). Measurements included assessment of valvular regurgitation and calculations of valve effective orifice area (EOA) and mean transvalvular gradients; the same measurements were also performed at the level of the pulmonary homograft in the Ross patients as well as during maximum exercise in 20 Ross patients and 14 AH patients.