Personalized external aortic root support

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: Implantation of a personalized external aortic root support (PEARS) can prevent dilatation of the aortic root and ascending aorta in patients with aortopathy of various aetiologies. Because PEARS is an emerging technology, all aspects concerning indications, surgical technique and safety should be elucidated. Our goal was to summarize all of these aspects so that physicians and patients would have sufficient information to evaluate this alternative approach. METHODS: Between April 2004 and March 2020, 317 patients underwent PEARS operations at 25 surgical centres in 9 countries. RESULTS: The most common indication was Marfan syndrome (57%). The single perioperative death represented a mortality of 0.3%. The long-Term experience comprises 871 patient/years with 1 patient living for 15 years and 19 patients living for more than 10 years. CONCLUSIONS: PEARS seems to be a promising method of treatment of dilatation of the aortic root and/or ascending aorta. Multicentre observational studies are needed to gain more experience because this operation is still uncommon and the number of operations per surgeon/ centre is low.