Polyester Vascular Graft Material and Risk for Intracavitary Thoracic Vascular Graft Infection

Abstract

Prosthetic vascular graft infections of the thoracic aorta are rare but can be fatal. Our comparison of collagen- and gelatin-coated grafts showed that collagen-coated grafts were associated with increased biofilm formation and bacterial adherence in vitro and with higher rates of perioperative vascular graft infections in vivo.

Keywords

• Prosthetic vascular graft infection
• biofilm
• coating
• VASGRA
• bacteria
• gelatin-coated