Baseline patient characteristics
Of the 109 patients (65 men [59.6%]; overall mean age: 73.4±13.9 years), 60 (55.0%) had mechanical valves and 49 (45.0%) had biological valves. In addition to SAVR, 9 (8.2%) patients had mitral valve replacement (MVR) and 3 (2.8%) had mitral valvuloplasty (MVP). The primary aortic diseases were the following: aortic stenosis (AS) (n=62; 56.9%), aortic regurgitation (AR) (n=28; 25.7%), infective endocarditis (IE) (n=18; 16.5%), and rupture of sinus of Valsalva aneurysm (n=1; 0.9%). The mean duration since AVR was 11.0±8.5 years. Other basic patient characteristics are summarized in Table 1.