Aortic valve-sparing operations: dealing with the coronary artery that is too close to the aortic annulus.

During aortic root surgery, one of the coronary ostia is sometimes found to lie too close to one of the commissures to allow its safe detachment as a button while still preserving the native aortic valve. In the past, this has prevented aortic valve-sparing root replacement in cases of aortic root aneurysm. We describe a technique pertaining to the reimplantation method of aortic valve-sparing root replacement to deal with such a displaced coronary artery.