Preparatory surgical stent placement facilitating extracardiac vascular connections

Native pericardium can be valuable material for the construction of extracardiac vascular connections. To avoid its scarring by adhesions and to preform future vascular connections, ringed polytetrafluoroethylene prostheses were implanted into the pericardial sac during staged operations for univentricular heart disease. At reoperation, extracardiac connections were found to be greatly facilitated by this approach.