“…The imp lan tation of a prosthet ic car diac valve with a large enough diame te r in th e aortic position not seldom fails because of too small an aortic annulus, especiall y in pat ients with aortic valve stenosis. On these grounds variou s operative procedures have been devel oped for the enlargement of the left ventricular o utflo w tract (3 -5, 9, 15, 16, 20, 26, 32), inclu ding the incorporation of a graft in the aortic incision whi ch has been ex tended through the valve annulus as far as th e ante rio r mitral valve leaflet (3,5,14,16), 3 1). This procedure , recommended by N icks and co-worke rs (20) in 1970, clinically tested by Borst and co-workers in 1973 (3,5,12,13), and finally developed furt her by Manouguian in 1976 (16), has been routinely used in patients with small aortic root s in our clinic sinc e au tumn Received fo r Publi cati on : March 25, 1985 1976 (5,12,13).…”