Heart Transplant Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Heart Transplant, including details on risks, prognosis, procedure, surgery, organ donation.

Cardiac allograft aortic dissection: successful repair using a composite valve graft and modified-Cabrol coronary reconstruction.

Caffarelli AD, Fann JI, Salerno CT, Johnson F, Jenkins DD, O'Bannon L, Burdon TA

Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.

We report a 55-year-old man, the recipient of a cardiac allograft for ischemic cardiomyopathy 9 years earlier, who presented with progressive aortic root dilation, worsening aortic insufficiency, and an incidentally discovered chronic type A aortic dissection limited to the donor aorta. The patient was taken to the operating room, and the aortic dissection successfully repaired using standard reoperative techniques. This is the sixth case reported in the literature, and only the fourth survivor. To our knowledge, this case represents the first successful repair, of a limited aortic dissection of the donor aorta postcardiac transplantation, using a composite valve graft and modified-Cabrol coronary reconstruction.

Published 12 September 2005 in J Card Surg, 20(5): 450-2.
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