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J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2003;125:773-778
© 2003 The American Association for Thoracic Surgery
Editorials |
From the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, Calif.
Received for publication Sept 7, 2002. Revisions requested Sept 17, 2002; revisions received Sept 23, 2002. Accepted for publication Oct 3, 2002. Address for reprints: D. Craig Miller, MD, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Stanford University School of Medicine, Falk Cardiovascular Research Center CV 243, 300 Pasteur Dr, Stanford, CA 94305-5407 (E-mail: dcm{at}stanford.edu).
| Introduction |
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Your Editor solicited commentary for this provocative article,
1 not so much to enter the fray concerning which method of valve-sparing aortic root replacementYacoub remodeling versus David reimplantationis best for patients with the Marfan syndrome (MFS), but to clarify for the readership the key differences between the two procedures and how these operations have evolved. I will also emphasize six points raised by the article.
Historically, conventional cardiovascular surgical treatment for patients with the MFS who have aneurysm or dissection involving the ascending aorta has been replacement of the entire aortic root and valve with a composite valve graft (CVG) and reimplantation of the coronary artery ostia. A CVG incorporating a mechanical valve is usually used because most of these patients are young, can safely tolerate anticoagulation with warfarin, and do not wish to accept the risk of another operation. Over the past 30 years, CVG has become a low risk operation and a very durable one for patients with the MFS.
2-4 On the other hand, some patients have medical contraindications that make indefinite anticoagulation inadvisable, others are not medically compliant enough for anticoagulation to be safe, some individuals have lifestyles that make anticoagulation hazardous, others do not have secure long-term access to health insurance or continuing medical care, some have an aversion to anticoagulation, and the older patients do not need a new valve that will last for many decades. In these relatively infrequent circumstances, the aortic root and valve can be replaced with an allograft aortic root, a stentless porcine xenograft aortic root, or a Dacron tube graft with a stented bioprosthesis sewn into it.
4 A Ross-Shumway procedure is contraindicated because of the aneurysmal disease and underlying connective tissue disorder. The durability of all these various tissue valve alternatives, however, is limited. Furthermore, the risk at reoperation is not negligible; for example, an allograft may be densely calcified, sternal re-entry may be perilous, the coronary ostia need to be reimplanted again, and the aortic annulus may have scarred down excessively. Another option gaining popularity for those wishing to avoid anticoagulation is valve-sparing aortic root replacement. But this option is also a trade-off. How many years without warfarin will the valve last before a second operation becomes necessary?
Valve-sparing aortic root replacement operations can be subdivided into two general families: (1) the Yacoub "remodeling" procedure used since 1979
5-9 and (2) the David "reimplantation" procedure performed since 1988.
1,10-14 The paper under discussion in this issue
1 of the Journal is focused solely on 105 patients with the MFS classified strictly according to the Ghent criteria: 44 patients received a CVG and 61 underwent valve-sparing aortic root replacement. What is the difference between the remodeling and the reimplantation methods of valve-sparing aortic root replacement? The easiest way to distinguish between them is whether the procedure employs 2 aortic suture lines (Yacoub remodeling technique) or 3 (David reimplantation technique). There are variations of the remodeling procedure,
15-19 but they all rely on sewing the scalloped graft to residual aortic sinus tissue around the aortic cusps and commissures proximally. One putative advantage of the remodeling approach is that the graft billows, thereby mimicking the natural sinuses of Valsalva. This allows more natural leaflet motion
9 and should theoretically reduce cusp closing stresses and thereby enhance long-term valve durability.
20,21 Conversely, there are two drawbacks of any remodeling procedure: (1) absence of fixation of the aortic annulus (more properly called the "ventriculo-aortic junction," which is coronet shaped and not planar), which can predispose to postoperative annular dilatation and recurrent aortic regurgitation (AR); and (2) two (instead of one) exposed aortic suture lines, which can predispose to bleeding. Of course, both techniques require reimplantation of the coronary ostia (preferably using full-thickness Carrel buttons), which less commonly can also be sites of bleeding. When Sir Magdi discussed the current paper
1 as well as David and Feindel's paper
12 presented at the 2000 annual meeting of The American Association for Thoracic Surgery, he mentioned subtle modifications in his technique over the years, including picking the proper graft size, cutting narrower and shorter scallops in the graft, and reattaching the commissures up inside the graft higher than the apex of the scallops. Other adaptations include those reported by Dion's group
17 in 27 patients (9 with the MFS), Svensson's semi-inclusion hybrid technique
18 used in 13 patients (not stated was how many had the MFS), which relies on side-to-side anastomoses that may not necessarily be full-thickness suture bites, and Hvass' method
19 wherein the lower scalloped Dacron graft is placed inside the retained native sinuses (n = 5). Schäfers' unit in Homburg has a relatively large overall experience (n = 99) predominately with the Yacoub approach,
22-24 but had only 5 patients with the MFS in their latest report.
24 Even more confusing, David himself also used two remodeling techniques in the pastwhich I call the "T. David-II" (classic Yacoub remodeling) and the "T. David-III" (remodeling with an external synthetic strip added between the left and right mitral fibrous trigones [the fibrous portion of the left ventricular outflow tract] as an external narrowing annuloplasty).
1,12,13
What is the rationale behind the various modifications of the reimplantation technique and what do they strive to accomplish? Number one, all reimplantation methods firmly anchor the aortic graft proximally at the ventriculo-aortic junction below the leaflets with the commissures sewn inside the Dacron graft. Although David objects to my labeling, I have resorted to numbering his various valve-sparing aortic root operations because Tirone's technique changes frequently: A "T. David-I" is his original reimplantation procedure using a cylindrical tube graft; the "T. David-II" and "T. David-III" are variations of Yacoub's remodeling procedure (see above); a "T. David-IV" is reimplantation using a 4-mm larger graft size with plication of the graft circumferentially at the sinotubular junction above the tops of the commissures; and a "T. David-V" (used by David and me since May 2001) is reimplantation using an even larger graft size (d + 6-8 mm), which is "necked down" at both the bottom and the top ends to create graft pseudosinuses (Figure 1). The "T. David-V" technique gives the surgeon unlimited flexibility in terms of the relative sizes that he or she makes the annulus, neosinuses, and sinotubular ridge, as well as the "height" of the neosinuses, which are quite prominent echocardiographically. Since David's entire valve-sparing experience (1988-2001) in 61 MFS patients is reported in the current article,
1 one assumes that all 5 procedures were used: reimplantation in 39 ("T. David-I, -IV, or -V") and remodeling in 22 ("T. David-II or -III"). Other modifications of reimplantation valve-sparing root replacement include the Cochran procedure
20 introduced in 1995 (n = 10, 5 with the MFS), which is noteworthy because it creates pseudosinuses in the graft as prompted by the mathematical modeling studies of Cochran,
20 Grande-Allen,
21 and their associates. An innovative modification by Mohr's group
25 in 13 patients (4 with the MFS) reduces the size of the natural sinuses of Valsalva, and they are then sewn inside of graft in toto as one circular transverse suture line, instead of the usual up and down around the scalloped commissures. Moritz started in Vienna using the classic "T. David-I" technique,
26 but since moving to Frankfurt he has modified the technique to use an oversized graft and plicate the bottom (or annular) end of the graft in an attempt to create neosinuses.*
This is different from the "T. David-IV" procedure, in which only the distal end (or sinotubular junction) of the graft is necked down. Moritz's group demonstrated more physiologic leaflet opening and closing dynamics in 21 patients who underwent their modified David valve-sparing root replacement compared with 25 others who had a "T. David-I," but only 3 patients had the MFS.*
The Hannover group, initially under the direction of Professor Hans Borst and subsequently Axel Haverich, has popularized the original "T. David-I" reimplantation concept, which they first started using in 1993.
27-31 In their most recent publication of 101 patients, they analyzed 75 individuals who had been followed up for longer than 1 year; of these, 22 had the MFS.
28 MFS was not a predictor of postoperative AR. Recently, De Paulis and associates
32,33 introduced a new "sinus graft" that includes a larger size, compliant graft segment ("skirt") above a narrower, short "collar"; De Paulis's group
34 originally used this graft for Yacoub remodeling but soon switched to the David reimplantation method; 5 of their 16 patients had the MFS. Changing to the reimplantation technique is not surprising given that an earlier paper on Yacoub remodeling from this same unit
35 (n = 36, 4 with the MFS) reported that 3 of 4 patients with the MFS had required reoperation within 3 years. This newly available commercial graft is an attractive concept. Modifying the fabrication of the graft using customized teardrop-shaped sinuses of individual compliance was devised by Thubrikar and Robicsek
36-38 and can be applied either to remodeling or to reimplantation.
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29-31 mm) and/or abnormal aortic leaflets should probably receive a CVG because one cannot be confident about long-term valve durability. On the other hand, individuals with prolapse (usually the noncoronary cusp) or with stretched, elongated aortic valve cusps can have successful repair by reducing the length of the cusp free margin with a 5-0 or 6-0 braided polyester plication suture, which elevates the level of cusp coaptation higher up into the graft.
As surgeons have gained more experience, valve-sparing aortic root replacement has been applied to other patient substrates, including those with bicuspid aortic valves,
1,7,22 acute type A aortic dissection,
1,7,23,27,39,40 a failing (full root) Ross procedure secondary to dilatation of the sinotubular junction,
41,42 and patients with a chronic type A dissection after previous supracoronary tube graft repair.
31 While the short-term results using either remodeling
7,23,39 or reimplantation
1,27 for acute aortic dissection have generally been satisfactory in terms of valve durability, long-term survival has not been optimal.
7 The Hannover group, however, recently cautioned that 3 of 8 patients with acute dissection who received a Yacoub remodeling procedure required reoperation for AR within 4 years.
40 The David reimplantation concept is better for acute aortic dissection because it is more hemostaticthe only suture lines that can bleed are the coronary buttons and the distal aortic anastomosis. In fact, David's current article states that the take-back for bleeding rates was 3% for reimplantation versus 18% for remodeling in patients with the MFS (and only 15% of these patients had an acute aortic dissection).
1
| Issues in the current article |
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| The bottom line |
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What remains unknown is the truly long-term results in larger numbers of patients with the MFS and whether the overall incidence of all valve-related and aorta-related complications will be lower than that after conventional CVG with a mechanical prosthetic valve. To this end, the National Marfan's Foundation is sponsoring a prospective multicenter registry investigation of both types of valve-sparing aortic root replacement procedures in patients with the MFS. Participating centers from around the world have already committed to this project, which they hope will be launched in 2003. Clinical and operative information, as well as serial echocardiographic, computed tomographic, and magnetic resonance imaging data, will be collected and analyzed. Only when the long-term results of such studies are compiled will we know with certainty which type of valve-sparing operation is more durable, how "generalizable" the clinical results really are, and whether overall outcome is superior to that after CVG.
In the interim, with all due respect to Sir Magdi's beliefs and vast experience (he truly is a master surgeon), I believe we should be conservative for valve-sparing aortic root replacement in patients with the MFS, which is the most demanding patient substrate: a reimplantation-type procedure that reliably prevents future dilatation of the aortic annulus is the most prudent choice based on the data available at this time. Seasoned surgical judgment and careful patient selection are key in deciding whether valve-sparing root replacement is the best option. It also is implicit that a patient who chooses valve-sparing root replacement be well informed and understand that a second operation may be necessary. Patients should seek out a cardiovascular surgeon who has considerable personal experience with valve-sparing aortic root replacement, because the initial learning curve can be steep. These procedures are unforgiving in terms of small technical errors and, at this time, truly are based more on 3-dimensional geometric thinking and "art" than they are on science.
| Footnotes |
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*Gore-Tex suture; registered trade mark of W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc, Flagstaff, Ariz. ![]()
| References |
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