Most of the cardiac surgeons have been interested with the homograft aortic valve replacement and learned how to handle it since first homograft replacement of the aortic valve was reported in1962 by Ross. Today, the homograft valves have been used extensively all around the world. In this study 18 patients who underwent homograft aortic valve replacement in Ege University Medical Faculty, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery betwen 1991-1994 were presented with postoperative results. Ten of these patients were male and 8 were female, mean age was 32.71.

The valvular pathology was aortic insufficiency in 8 patiency, aortic stenosis and insufficiecny in 8, aortic insufficiency and mitral stenosis in 2. Homograft valves harvested from the donor and preserved in the fresh nutrient antibiotic solutions at +4°C (antibiotic fresh wet stored) for a maximum of 6 weeks. The mean preservation time for the homograft valves was 22.4 days. Mitral valve repair was performed in 2 patients concomitantly. The mean follow-up time was 22.5 months. In fallow-up, there is one patient second degree of aortic insufficiency. One patient, third degree aortic insufficiency needed replacement of the homograft valve and underwent 15 months later from the first operation. The cause of insufficiency in this patient was technical. There was a statistically significant decrease in patients left ventricular end diastolic and endsystolic diameters postoperatively. There was no thromboembolic event, LDH measurements were slighty increased postoperatively but this was not found statistcally significant.