Results of the Aortic Valve Reconstruction in Children

Aortic valve disease counts up to 5% of cases of congenital heart disease being one of the most common congenital malformations of the cardiovascular system. This disease requires replacement of the damaged valve which in itself is not a trivial task to complete in children as there is still no available best practice for valve replacement. Today, the following alternative variants are performed in children: mechanical aortic prosthesis, xenografts, allografts, and pulmonary autograft (Ross procedure) and each has its potential advantages and disadvantages. Mechanical aortic prostheses require lifelong anticoagulation therapy and repeated surgeries to replace mechanical valves during child growth. Available xenografts in children also has suboptimal results not only because of absence of growth potential, but also due to development of degenerative changes in biological tissue of the graft leaflets. Allograft tissues are exposed to rapid biodegradation in the recipient body and thus requiring repeated surgeries associated with higher difficulty, high risk of hemorrhages, and injury of the coronary injuries. Ross procedure was proposed as theoretically the most evidence-based reconstruction of the aortic valve in children. Even successfully performed Ross operation transforms one-valve disorder into two-valve disease. The accumulation of knowledge on the anatomy of the aortic root and improvement of surgical techniques led to the development of new methods for reconstruction of the valve function. The technique is widely applied in adult cardiac surgery, uses glutaraldehyde-treated autopericardium for augmentation of the leaflets. Absence of foreign material provides no need for anticoagulation therapy. Potentially, reconstruction of the aortic valve with autopericardium can be widely used in children. Aim is to study safety, clinical and hemodynamic efficacy of the method of the aortic valve reconstruction with autopericardium in children with aortic valve disease. Patients aged 29 days to 12 years will be included into the study. The data according to the protocol of the study will be assessed at the stage of inclusion, during the surgery, in 30 days after the surgery, and in 1, 2, and 3 years after the surgery. Data about all the patients included into the research will be analyzed in order to study the endpoints and achieve the research aim.