ORIGINAL ARTICLE  CARDIAC SECTION 

The Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery 2020 December;61(6):769-75

DOI: 10.23736/S0021-9509.20.11349-1

Copyright © 2020 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Rapid-deployment aortic valve replacement in high-risk patients with severe endocarditis

Antonio PIPERATA ^{1, 2} ✉, Gregory KALSCHEUER ^{1, 3}, Alexandre METRAS ¹, Mathieu PERNOT ¹, Waleed ALBADI ¹, Saud TAYMOOR ¹, Julien PELTAN ¹, Pierre OSES ¹, Laurent BARANDON ¹, Tomaso BOTTIO ³, Gino GEROSA ³, Louis LABROUSSE ¹

¹ Department of Valvulopathies, Cardiac Surgery and Adult Interventional Cardiology, de Haut-Lévèque Hospital, University Hospital of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France; ² Department of Cardio-Vascular, Thoracic Surgery and Lung Transplantation, UCL Namur University Hospital, Catholic University of Louvain, Yvoir, Belgium; ³ Department of Cardiology, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences, University of Padua, Padua, Italy

BACKGROUND: Surgical management of aortic valve endocarditis in high risk patients is controversial and the ideal treatment has not been found yet. We describe a selected series of eight patients treated with rapid-deployment aortic valve prosthesis as a therapeutic solution for minimizing the risks associated with annulus manipulation in case of severe aortic infective endocarditis.
METHODS: Eight consecutive patients (five men and three women) with a mean age of 74.3±7.2 years, mean logistic EuroSCORE II of 16.0%±0.1%, affected by aortic native (1 patient), or prosthetic valve endocarditis (7 patients), were treated with Edwards Intuity Elite implantation. Hemodynamic performance and infective data were collected pre-, intra-, and postoperatively with a mean follow-up of 2.7±0.7 years.
RESULTS: One case of in-hospital mortality was noted. None of the patients had any embolic or infective complication postoperatively. The cardiopulmonary bypass and aortic cross-clamp times were 148.4±41.6 and 90.5±25.3 min, respectively. The postoperative echocardiographic controls indicated a mean transvalvular gradient of 16.7±3.0 mmHg and one case of paravalvular leaks (2 +). Two patients underwent epigastric permanent pacemaker implantation. During the follow-up, seven patients were alive, with no evidence of symptoms or recurrences of endocarditis or embolic episodes. No new paravalvular leaks were noted, and the mean gradient on the valves was 12.4±3.4 mmHg.
CONCLUSIONS: Rapid deployment aortic valve replacement in selected very high-risk patients affected by infective endocarditis could be a reasonable choice with acceptable results. However, further studies are needed to confirm these results.

KEY WORDS: Endocarditis; Aortic valve; Prostheses and implants