Early experience with the freestyle stentless xenograft

We performed aortic valve replacement with the Freestyle stentless xenograft in 9 patients. There were 6 men and 2 women, whose ages ranged from 44 to 76 years. The modified subcoronary implantation was used in 6 patients and the completely subcoronary implantation was used in 2 patients. The full root replacement was used in 1 patient with bicuspid aortic valve. In a patient who underwent root replacement, postoperative cineangiogram revealed just proximal right coronary artery stenosis. The patient underwent coronary artery bypass grafting to right coronary artery by use of the right internal mammary artery. One in-hospital death occurred on the 46th postoperative day in a patient with severe aortic stenosis and renal failure. 5 patients were investigated by doppler echocardiography at 2 weeks, 3, 6, and 12 months after operation. Peak pressure gradient 1 year after implantation was 11.7 +/- 3.9 mmHg for all valves. No patient had postoperative significant aortic regurgitation.