Figure legends

Fig. 1. Long-term outcomes in patients with grade ≥ III chronic aortic regurgitation and preserved left ventricular ejection fraction with or without aortic valve (AV) surgery (Reproduced with permission from reference 3).
LVEF, left ventricular ejection fraction
Fig. 2. A: Long-term survival in patients undergoing aortic valve (AV) repair (solid line) or aortic valve replacement (AVR: 29 biological prostheses; 15 mechanical prosthesis) (dashed line). The dotted line shows the survival of an age- and gender-matched Belgian population (Reproduced with permission from reference 8).
B: Freedom from all-cause mortality in patients undergoing elective aortic root surgery by aortic valve-sparing (AVS) technique and using bioprosthetic composite valve graft (bio-CVG) or mechanical composite valve graft (m-CVG) (Reproduced with permission from reference 7).
Fig. 3. A: Freedom from aortic valve reoperations in patients undergoing aortic valve (AV) repair (solid line) or aortic valve replacement (AVR) (dashed line) (Reproduced with permission from reference 8).
B: Prevalence of aortic valve reoperation over time using competing risk methods in patients undergoing elective aortic root surgery by aortic valve-sparing (AVS) technique and using bioprosthetic composite valve graft (bio-CVG) or mechanical composite valve graft (m-CVG) (Reproduced with permission from reference 7).
Fig. 4. A: Survival after aortic valve replacement adjusted for age and stratified by left ventricular indexed end-systolic dimensions (LVESD) (Reproduced with permission from reference 17).
B: Survival comparison among subgroups: 50% ≤ LVEF < 55% group vs. LVEF ≥ 55% group (Reproduced with permission from reference 18).
LVEF, left ventricular ejection fraction
Fig. 5. Repair-oriented functional classification of aortic insufficiency (AI) with description of disease mechanisms and repair techniques used (Reproduced with permission from reference 22).
FAA, functional aortic annulus; STJ, sinotubular junction; SCA, subcommissural annuloplasty
Fig. 6. A: Schematic representation of the system for classification of the bicuspid aortic valves. Prominent lines in schematic drawings represent raphe (Reproduced with permission from reference 24).
B: Schematic illustrations of the three groups of phenotypes of the repair-oriented bicuspid aortic valve classification (Reproduced with permission from reference 25).
Fig. 7. A: Schematic drawing of the aortic valve and root.
STJ, sinotubular junction; VAJ, ventriculoaortic junction; GH, geometric height;
eH, effective height.
B: Intraoperative photograph showing measurement of the effective height of the noncoronary cusp of a bicuspid aortic valve with the caliper (Both reproduced with permission from reference 26).
Fig. 8. Schematic drawing of external suture annuloplasty (A), external ring annuloplasty (B), and internal ring annuloplasty (C) (Reproduced with permission from reference 33, 27, and 34, respectively).
Fig. 9. Schematic drawing of the aortic root remodeling technique (A) and the aortic valve reimplantation technique (B) (Reproduced with permission from reference 40).
Fig. 10. A: Our original template to cut each scallop of the graft corresponding to the Valsalva sinus.
B: Our originally developed sizer with various sizes (16 – 30 mm) (a) with six equally distributed grooves facilitating marking of the middle points (b) (Reproduced with permission from reference 50).
Fig. 11. Endoscopic view of the normal aortic root at different diastolic pressures. A, 80 mmHg; B, 40 mmHg; C, 0 mmHg (Reproduced with permission from reference 52).