Successful treatment of infected ascending aortic prosthesis by omental wrapping without graft removal.

A deep wound infection after a midline sternotomy is a very serious complication. The severity of it can be increased by the presence of prosthetic material. We present a case of a 76-year-old man who had an infection of an ascending aortic graft develop after a Bentall procedure. Rather than following the "traditional" surgical therapy of graft explantation and debridement, we chose to preserve the graft and protect it by omental translocation. The relative merits of this therapeutic approach are outlined and discussed. The patient was discharged on the postoperative day 6 after an uneventful postoperative course.