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J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2003;126:586-588
© 2003 The American Association for Thoracic Surgery

Brief communication

Bovine valved xenograft conduits in the extracardiac Fontan procedure

^a Department of Cardiovascular Diseases, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Received for publication December 10, 2002; accepted for publication December 19, 2002.

^* Address for reprints: Ghassan Baslaim, MD, MBC-J 16, PO Box 40047, Jeddah 21499, Saudi Arabia
gbaslaim@hotmail.com

The first 300 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Dr Baslaim

Total cavopulmonary connection has been proposed as a rational alternative to atriopulmonary connection for complex Fontan operations. de Leval and colleagues¹ proposed the concept of direct cavopulmonary connection as a way to minimize kinetic energy loss in the Fontan circuit.

Total cavopulmonary anastomosis with the extracardiac conduit technique has gained favor because it streamlines the venous flow pattern and reduces the incidence of atrial arrhythmias.² There are a number of potential advantages of the extracardiac conduit approach over other modifications of the Fontan procedure, including the improved hydrodynamics in the cavopulmonary connection.³ Conduits of different material have been used for the extracardiac Fontan procedure, examples of these conduits are the Dacron tube, the polytetrafluoroethylene tube (Gore-Tex; W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc, Flagstaff, Ariz), the homograft, and the pericardial tube, and each one has advantages and disadvantages.^4,5

Bovine jugular vein xenograft (Medtronic’s Contegra, Medtronic, Inc, Minneapolis, Minn) has been used successfully to reconstruct the right ventricular outflow tract in patients with congenital heart disease, with promising early results.⁶ The Contegra conduit is a biologic valved conduit consisting of a glutaraldehyde-preserved heterologous bovine jugular vein with a trileaflet venous valve. The advantages of using the Contegra xenograft are easy availability, different size options, and the presence of a valve in the conduit.

In this report we present potential advantages of using a xenograft valved conduit to construct the extracardiac Fontan connection between the inferior vena cava (IVC) and the pulmonary artery (PA).

Clinical summary

Between June 2002 and October 2002, 4 patients underwent the extracardiac Fontan procedure using the concept of inserting a valved conduit (Contegra) between the IVC and the PA. The procedure was approved by the hospital research and ethics committee, and informed consent was obtained from the parents of the patients. All patients underwent complete preoperative cardiac evaluation, . . . [Full Text of this Article]

This article has been cited by other articles:

				S. I. Sersar and A. A. Jamjoom Contegra and extracardiac Fontan. J. Thorac. Cardiovasc. Surg., November 1, 2008; 136(5): 1393 - 1393. [Full Text] [PDF]