A healable filamentous Dacron surgical fabric. Experimental studies and clinical experience.

A strong, lightweight, highly compliant Dacron surgical fabric of warp-knit, velour construction has been developed as an outgrowth of research on filamentous tubular vascular prostheses. This material has excellent suturability and conformability, high preclotting efficiency, and is imprinted with calibration marks at 2 cm intervals. Experimentally, iliac artery and descending thoracic aorta patch grafts of this material were completely healed 28 days after implantation in dogs. Light and electron microscopy showed excellent healing. This paper reports clinical results of 119 patches implanted in 109 patients who have been followed for a mean of 26.4 months (range: 16--34 months). Of these, 20 patches were used in arterial reconstructions, and 99 were used in the heart for repair of 95 congenital and four acquired defects. The 20 patch angioplasties were performed in the carotid artery (four patches), subclavian artery, (one patch), common femoral artery, profunda femoris artery, or superficial femoral artery (10 patches), and in the popliteal artery (five patches). This new surgical fabric is easily adaptable to complex angioplasties and for repair of intracardiac abnormalities. No complications intrinsic to the surgical fabric have been observed in clinical use of this material in 109 patients.