The use of Valve Homografts and Autografts in Adult Cardiac Surgery

called homografts. In the literature confusion exists with the use of terms: homografts, autografts, xenografts and allografts in cardiac surgery. Specifically, with the terms homograft and/or autograft many surgeons referred to the grafts coming from the patient himself (eg the transposition of the pulmonary valve to the aortic position – Ross procedure), while allograft was called the graft deriving from another person (cadaveric). Currently, the term homograft –aortic, mitral, pulmonary– indicates processed grafts coming from another person (cadaveric), while the term autograft is reserved only for grafts coming from the patient himself. The term allograft is nowadays rarely used, since it has the same literal meaning as the term homograft. Finally, the term xenograft refers to biological (tissue) prosthetic valves, originating from animals (porcine, bovine, etc). In this article we review the utilisation of homografts (processed cadaveric valves) and autografts in adult cardiac surgery.