A modified composite valve Dacron graft for prevention of postoperative bleeding from the proximal anastomosis after Bentall procedure.

Bleeding is one of the most devastating complications of the Bentall procedure. We describe a simple, modified composite valve Dacron (DuPont, Wilmington, DE) graft to prevent bleeding from the proximal anastomosis between the graft and aortic annulus. The composite graft was modified by adding a short skirt of Dacron tube to a standard composite graft root. After the proximal end of the modified composite graft was implanted in the aortic annulus, the short skirt of Dacron tube was sewn to the remaining native aortic wall to wrap the proximal graft and aortic annular anastomosis. Our initial application of the modified composite graft demonstrated that this modified composite graft is an easy and effective way to prevent bleeding from the proximal anastomosis after the Bentall procedure.