Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• SANTIAGO, M. T
• QUEIROZ E MELO, J
• DUCLA-SOARES, E

Titel

Relationships between the dimensions of the human aortic and pulmonary valve leaflets: implications on Ross' operation

Ist Teil von

• European journal of cardio-thoracic surgery, 1996, Vol.10 (8), p.599-602

Ort / Verlag

Amsterdam: Elsevier Science B.V

Erscheinungsjahr

1996

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The technique of replacing the aortic valve with the patient's pulmonaryvalve and the implantation of a homograft in the pulmonary position wasfirst introduced by D. Ross in 1967. Despite the many advantages andsuccesses of this procedure, it frequently results in some degree of valveinsufficiency. In order to optimize the results of Ross' operation, wecarried out a comparative study (n = 22) of the relative dimensions of thehuman aortic and pulmonary valve leaflets using a digitizer. The digitizersupplies the spatial coordinates of a given point (in a pre-chosenreference frame), by the positioning of its sensor on that point. Bydigitizing relevant points marked on the arterial wall we were able tocalculate the distance between the commissures and the perimeter of eachleaflet. Analysing the values thus obtained, we found that in 17 of the 22cases studied (77.3%) there was one orientation (out of the threeanatomically possible orientations) of the pulmonary valve, relative to theconfiguration of the recipient aortic root, that was clearly better thanthe other two. This study led to the formulation of a "rule" that, in mostof the cases studied (86.4%), led to the best fitting orientation of theautograft using the knowledge of the intercommissural distances.