Pulmonary valve autotransplantation (the Ross operation).

In 1967, homografts had been in place five years and the early nonviable and natant freeze-dried valves were showing irrefutable signs of degeneration and calcification. For this reason, in 1967, we moved to reserving both viability and tissue integrity by cryopreservation. To overcome the problems of procurement, the next logical step was to transfer the patient's own pulmonic valve to the aortic area. In the past twenty years, 249 operations have been performed. Of the 249 patients, there have been 16 operative deaths (6.5%), but no operative deaths in the past ten years. There have been no details related to primary tissue failure in the aortic area. There have been 36 reoperations (14.4%).