Allograft root replacement for prosthetic endocarditis.

A series of 53 root replacements of the aortic valve for severe endocarditis is presented. The principles of this technique are to remove all abscesses and infected areas likely to drain into the mediastinum, excision of infected tissue down to healthy noninfected tissue, and replacement with an antibiotic-impregnated homograft aortic root. Using this technique there has been a very high rate of cure of this most dreaded complication.