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Comment by graeham | Hacker News Reader

Aorta wrapping was actually pioneered in the 1950's, before the graft replacements that the article mentions, but generally the wrapping had a poor result and was abandonded as a technique. (see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1802172/pdf/anns...)

Generally the trend in vascular surgery these days is to less invasive procedures such as a stent graft.

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And I think the journal article about this particular process is from 2009 ( http://icvts.oxfordjournals.org/content/10/3/360.short ).

So, hey, points to the BBC for writing an article about something that continues to be interesting instead of something that's "brand new".

I find it fascinating that such an old procedure has been revisited sucessfully (not completely unheard of in medicine either). Perhaps better materials (now a polymer mesh) than used previously (cellophane wrap!).

Sorry but when you use the term "generally" in a medical context you can be sure the following statement is incorrect. This article is referring to the aortic root which cannot be stinted due to its proximity to the heart.

"Generally" refers to an average trend, not that all examples must follow that trend.

I am not that familiar with Marfan's or this case, so I don't know if this device is useful in this case (http://www.medtronic.com/patients/heart-valve-disease/about-...), but there are stent-grafts that also replace the aortic value so that the stent-graft can be used close to the heart, and you can be sure that medical device companies are looking at ways of using stent-grafts in close proximity to the aortic valve without requiring its replacement.

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