IMR Press / RCM / Volume 24 / Issue 6 / DOI: 10.31083/j.rcm2406174
Open Access Original Research
Assessment of Computed Tomography Imaging for Isolated Type 1 Bicuspid Aortic Valve Repair: A Comparison between Internal and External Suture Annuloplasty Techniques
Qiming Ni1,†Liwen Fan2,†Wei Li3,†Shunan Ren3Xu Meng4,5,*Tianyang Yang3,*
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1 Department of Radiology, Shanghai Chest Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200030 Shanghai, China
2 Department of Thoracic Surgery, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200127 Shanghai, China
3 Department of Cardiac Surgery, Shanghai Chest Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200030 Shanghai, China
4 Department of Cardiac Surgery, Beijing Anzhen Hospital, Capital Medical University, 100029 Beijing, China
5 Department of Cardiac Surgery, Shanghai Forth People's Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, 200434 Shanghai, China
*Correspondence: mengxu191116@163.com (Xu Meng); yannikyangtianyang@hotmail.com (Tianyang Yang)
These authors contributed equally.
Rev. Cardiovasc. Med. 2023, 24(6), 174; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.rcm2406174
Submitted: 27 February 2023 | Revised: 7 May 2023 | Accepted: 18 May 2023 | Published: 14 June 2023
Copyright: © 2023 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Abstract

Background: The ideal position of suture annuloplasty relative to the aortic annulus (internal or external) remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of internal and external suture annuloplasty for isolated type 1 bicuspid aortic valve (BAV) repair. Electrocardiogram (ECG)-gated computed tomography (CT) was used to compare the two techniques and analyze their impact on the aortic annulus. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 20 patients who underwent isolated type 1 BAV repair with either internal or external suture annuloplasty. Each group included 10 patients with comparable clinical features. Preoperative and postoperative ECG-gated CT scans were performed to assess the anatomical relationship between the ventricular-aortic junction (VAJ) and virtual basal ring (VBR), and to measure the height of annuloplasty from the VBR at predefined landmarks in both groups. Perioperative annular geometries, including annular area and perimeter, were measured to quantify the impact of annuloplasty on annular expansibility. The discrepancy between the postoperative annular dimension and size of the Hegar dilator were compared between groups to evaluate the effectiveness of annuloplasty. Results: In both groups, VAJ was higher than VBR at the right coronary (RC) ostium (7.7 ± 3.3 mm) and the raphe (7.9 ± 1.5 mm). The height from the VBR to the external suture annuloplasty shared a similar pattern at the RC ostium and raphe (5.3 ± 1.1 mm and 4.8 ± 1.0 mm, respectively). In contrast, the height differences were minimal for these landmarks in the internal group. Postoperative annular area expansibility decreased in the internal group compared to preoperative levels (4.9 ± 2.3% vs. 8.9 ± 5.5%, p = 0.038), while no significant change was found in the external group (7.6 ± 4.1% vs. 6.5 ± 2.8%, p = 0.473). The internal group showed less area discrepancy between the VBR and the Hegar dilator both at systole (10.1 ± 3.7% vs. 30.1 ± 16.6%, p = 0.004) and diastole (5.7 ± 4.9% vs. 20.9 ± 14.5%, p = 0.009) compared to the external group. Conclusions: Internal suture annuloplasty results in better positioning relative to the VBR than external suture annuloplasty due to the absence of VAJ interference. While this results in more precise annular reduction and less expansibility in the short term, a long-term follow-up evaluation is necessary to assess its effectiveness.

Keywords
bicuspid aortic valve
aortic valve repair
internal and external suture annuloplasty
computed tomography imaging
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