title: Xenopericardial self-made tube grafts in infectious vascular reconstructions: Preliminary results of an easy and ready to use surgical approach.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Infections are a major setback of vascular reconstruction and associated with considerable morbidity and mortality. We evaluated retrospectively our results with self-made bovine pericardial grafts in infected vessel revascularization versus standard graft material.
  
  
  METHODS
  Retrospective analysis of 9 patients with bovine reconstruction and 10 patients with miscellaneous grafts (vein, homograft) for vascular infections.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Infection-free rate of the pericardial group was 100% in 17 months. For patients after reconstructions with miscellaneous grafts, the infection-free rate was 82% in 45 months. Overall in-hospital mortality was 10.5%. There were no in-hospital deaths in the pericardial group. Graft patency of the whole cohort was 100%. The median follow up was 11.74 months.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Self-made bovine pericardial tube grafts can be crafted to almost any size and adjusted to complex anatomic requirements. The use was feasible in various situations and was associated with good preliminary results concerning patency and reinfection.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiac Surgery, Triemli Hospital, Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Alicja
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zientara
authors.affiliation: Department of Vascular Surgery, Triemli Hospital, Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Igor
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Schwegler
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiac Surgery, Triemli Hospital, Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Omer
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Dzemali
authors.affiliation: Department of Vascular Surgery, Augsburg City Hospital, Augsburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Hans
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bruijnen
authors.affiliation: Department of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Andreas Sebastian
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Peters
authors.affiliation: Department of Vascular Surgery, Triemli Hospital, Zürich, Switzerland nicolas.attigah@triemli.zuerich.ch.
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Attigah
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D064591:Allografts; D000818:Animals; D001807:Blood Vessel Prosthesis / Q000009:adverse effects*; D019917:Blood Vessel Prosthesis Implantation / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000401:mortality; D002417:Cattle; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D005260:Female; D064593:Heterografts; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010496:Pericardium / Q000637:transplantation*; D011474:Prosthesis Design; D016459:Prosthesis-Related Infections / Q000382:microbiology / Q000401:mortality / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery*; D012008:Recurrence; D012086:Reoperation; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014654:Vascular Patency; D014680:Veins / Q000637:transplantation
keywords: Vascular reconstruction; bovine pericardium; graft infection; self-made graft; xenopericard