Single Center Five Years' Experience of Ozaki Procedure: Midterm Follow-up

Single Center Five Years’ Experience of Ozaki Procedure: Midterm Follow-up

Background. The Ozaki procedure is an innovative surgical technique aiming at the reconstruction of the aortic valve with autologous pericardium to overcome the limitations of commercially available prostheses. Methods. We retrospectively analyzed 71 patients who underwent the Ozaki operation at our center between October 2014 and February 2020. Results. No in-hospital death occurred. Freedom from major adverse valve-related events was 97%. The aortic gradients and transvalvular velocity were significantly lower at the 3-month echocardiographic control than at the predischarge echocardiography (10.93 ± 5.38, P < .01 vs 16.24 ± 7.67, P < .01, respectively). The median follow-up period was 20.7 months (range, 2 to 47). Four patients showed mild/ moderate aortic insufficiency (5.6%), and none showed severe aortic valve insufficiency. No patients underwent reoperation. Conclusions. Midterm outcome follow-up of the Ozaki procedure showed optimal results in terms of mortality, transaortic valve gradients, freedom from major adverse valve-related events, and recurrence of aortic valve insufficiency.