Current age Aortic Graft(Dacron) Longevity

[pellicle]

Hi

No Tom I didn’t misunderstood , he was firm in what he said.
today also I heard from one lady that her aorta graft dissected after 20 plus years.

Interesting, so, what year was her graft put in?
did it "dissect" or did it separate from the place it was stiched to?
was it a graft which was produced as a component with the valve?
was a valve replaced at the same time?
where did it rupture (and was it near the arch)?

I am trying to find if the Dacron graft used now is different than earlier age grafts or they are same.

I'm pretty sure that's going to be difficult to find, I'd contact manuracturers directly (and in my view its like asking "did car tyres change in the last 40 years).

Also, as I understood it, you have one doctor (was he a surgeon?) saying they last for 30 years and a number who say "its good for life" ... why do you place so much more stock in the opinion of that one? Greater experience?

Ultimately you'll be much better off with any graft than keeping the original ... that's almost a 100% certainty to not last 30 more years.

Maybe I'm some sort of fool, but in all my surgeries I never once asked how long I'd live for ... I never put my foot down and required anything to do more than move me along.

Probably I'd had enough friends die in car accidents, cancer, and other issues to even think of such things as requiring a certainty of the future.

I still return to quoting Seneca:
"They lose the day in expectation of the night, and the night in fear of the dawn."

 

[pellicle]

Hey Superman , you had a graft put in in 2009 ... how old were you then? Are you worried about it?

 

[dixitworld]

Jeanie in one the facebook group of aortic dissection said : Dacron graft was put in at 14 for coarctation of the aortic arch. Surgeon said it would last to my 60s and never stressed life long visits. It eventually eroded through my aorta into my lung and caused a fistula and 7.4cm aneurysm(doc said they didnt expected it and is rare) , after some shortness of breath i went to urgent care , they sent me to ER and i ruptured within 30 min of getting to ER. It was pretty crazy.

 

[pellicle]

Hi

Jeanie in one the facebook group of aortic dissection said : Dacron graft was put in at 14 for coarctation of the aortic arch. Surgeon said it would last to my 60s and never stressed life long visits. It eventually eroded through my aorta into my lung and caused a fistula and 7.4cm aneurysm(doc said they didnt expected it and is rare) , after some shortness of breath i went to urgent care , they sent me to ER and i ruptured within 30 min of getting to ER. It was pretty crazy.

thats an interesting and even fortunate story but with some inconsistencies that raise questions and an important point with respect to your own health.

That point is this ->> after such sugery get follow ups ...

So it was placed at 14 and how old was she when it finally got to ER?
Coarcation of the arch is quite different surgery to what you are having (Bental)

A fistula is a hole, so where?
7.4 aneuryism sounds like something was ballooning like where the aorta was attached (think garden hose connected to a pipe with greater pressure than the hose was designed to handle.

One of the problems with patient descriptions is they seldom actually know much about the anatomy and thus the descriptions are often ... well fractured.

There must have been years of signs that were being ignored. As with all accident investigation it ALWAYS comes down to the failure of multiple levels of safety (usually due to humans failing to do the safety procedure) before an actual event falls through those protections.

Either way I'm not reading that the dacron graft failed, but the underlying tissue did. We don't also know what was the condition of Jeanie in terms of what sort of connective tissue disorder she may have had. It could be poor surgery plain and simple, but maybe not.

You will always be able to find the "one in a million" **** hit the fans if you search for them, but it appears to me you are focusing on these rare events and ignoring the key point that the VAST majority of these procedures work.

I have a question for you if I may: Do you think you are suffering from a reaction to the discovery of this issue and feeling a betrayal of some trust where perhaps on your previous OHS you were told (something like) "if you have this valve you will never need another surgery" ??

If so then I think you should consider that there is no such thing as "never need another surgery" unless you are already dead. There is however a significant difference between "may never need another surgery" and "will certainly need surgery again".

I would suggest that the Bental procedure puts you into the "may never need another surgery" rather than "will certainly"

Either way, aside from having this procedure, what other options do you feel you have? If none, then don't you think its time to accept that:

• its needed and you should have it
• ongoing (perhaps yearly at first then every couple of years) monitoring will prevent any horror "dissections" by early detection
• life is a journey of uncertainty, not one which you control or can control

Some thoughts of mine about myself which I gathered so that I could share them more easily
http://cjeastwd.blogspot.com/2015/09/denial-or-delusion.html

Best Wishes

 

[Superman]

Hey Superman , you had a graft put in in 2009 ... how old were you then? Are you worried about it?

I was 36. It was 19 years after my first valve replacement. Coming up on 9 years already. Hard to believe. Just ran 4 miles in 39:15 tonight and finally got my 5k split under a half hour at 29:56. Not too bad for being in my mid 40’s with two OHS’s under my belt. I guess I wouldn’t be pushing it if I was losing sleep over my graft.

 

[Agian]

Interesting discussion. I always thought the Dacron graft was the easy bit.

 

[tom in MO]

If you can get specific information about a medical device you can search the FDA website for reported problems with that device. For example, after my valve replacement, I searched the exact model and found that there is on record one case of the valve failing (leaflet came unattached) that resulted in death. It was a number of years ago. Must have been made on a Monday during football season

 

[dixitworld]

If you can get specific information about a medical device you can search the FDA website for reported problems with that device. For example, after my valve replacement, I searched the exact model and found that there is on record one case of the valve failing (leaflet came unattached) that resulted in death. It was a number of years ago. Must have been made on a Monday during football season

Tom , i cant see any info about the grafts specifically on FDA. seems only info about valves of various companies. My main concern remain going early for surgery at 5.1-5.2 range or waiting to see if it can remain stable before 5.5 remains doubtful in my mind. Since graft also cannot guarantee anything