[Cryo-treated allo-prosthesis: applications and complications].
From January 1987 to December 1992, fifty two patients aged 1 day to 20 years were implanted cryo-treated homografts into the right-sided position. The patients were diagnosed as having severe Fallot's tetrads, common arterial trunk, transposition of great vessels, vascular bifurcation with pulmonary atresia and isolated pulmonary atresia. The authors implanted 56 homografts, out of them 37 aortic and 19 pulmonary. In the early postoperative period 8 (15.4%) patients died whereas in the late period 1 (1.92%) patient. Out of complications, pseudoaneurysm, calcification with pseudoaneurysm, flap dilatation, and severe prosthesis calcification were found in 1, 1, 1, and 4 patients, respectively. The development of pseudoaneurysms is likely to result from incorrect treatment of donor tissue and to be not so infrequently as previously assumed. To prevent their development is to apply accessory individual sutures to the gaskets in the area of the anterior wall of proximal anastomosis and to use the Gore-Tex material for an external flap.