Acute aortic dissection is a life-threatening condition, and may be treated with aggressive hypotensive drug therapy, but emergency surgery is often necessary. We evaluated the effectiveness of stent-grafts for the treatment of acute aortic dissection. Aortic dissection was surgically created in the descending thoracic aorta in 20 adult mongrel dogs. A stent-graft was inserted in the entry posi...

RATIONALE Mutations in fibrillin-1 are associated with thoracic aortic aneurysm (TAA) in Marfan syndrome. Genome-wide association studies also implicate fibrillin-1 in sporadic TAA. Fragmentation of the aortic elastic lamellae is characteristic of TAA. OBJECTIVE Immunoassays were generated to test whether circulating fragments of fibrillin-1, or other microfibril fragments, are associated wit...

BACKGROUND Although type B aortic dissection has been treated with beta blockers to lower the arterial blood pressure (BP), there has been little evidences about reduction in heart rate (HR). We assessed whether tight HR control improved the outcome of medical treatment in patients with aortic dissection. METHODS AND RESULTS From 1997 to 2005, 171 patients with acute aortic dissection medical...

OBJECTIVES Ascending aortic dissection has a poor prognosis if it is not promptly corrected surgically. Even with surgical correction, postoperative management is feared because of its complicated course. Our aim was to describe the incidence of postoperative complications and identify the 1 and 6-month mortality rate of our ascending aortic dissection surgical cohort. Secondarily, a comparison...

Thoracic aortic aneurysm is often an asymptomatic but potentially lethal disease if its most catastrophic complication - aortic dissection - occurs. Thoracic aortic dissection is associated with a high mortality rate despite ongoing improvement in its management. We report a fatal outcome of thoracic aortic aneurysm in a male patient with bicuspid aortic valve. The patient was qualified for ele...

T he list of long-term complications after surgical intervention for acute type A aortic dissection includes recurrent dissection, aneurysm formation, and aortic valve regurgitation. Ten years after the initial operation for acute type A dissection, the reoperation rate for these kinds of long-term complications is 13% to 30% in the literature.1 The diseased aortic root in these patients is com...

The coexistence of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) may impose an additional risk on aortic dissection due to the possible increase in aortic transmural pressure. Thus, effective treatment for OSA, such as noninvasive positive pressure ventilation (NPPV), is thought to decrease the risk in patients with aortic dissection. We experienced one case of an OSA patient with aortic dissection who was suc...

Progressive dilatation of the false lumen in the arch and descending aorta has been encountered in one-third of survivors as a late sequelae following repair of ascending aortic dissection. Conventional treatment for the same requiring cardiopulmonary bypass and deep hypothermic circulatory arrest is associated with high morbidity and mortality especially in the elderly cohort of patients. Here...

Aortic dissection is the most devastating complication of thoracic aortic disease. In the more than 250 years since thoracic aortic dissection was first described, much has been learned about diseases of the thoracic aorta. In this review, we describe normal thoracic aortic size; risk factors for dissection, including genetic and inflammatory conditions; the underpinnings of genetic diseases as...

In patients with acute type A aortic dissection, intimal detachment associated with circumferential dissection of the left main coronary artery (LMCA) is a rare but lethal complication. We report a Marfan patient with dissection and intimal detachment of the LMCA that was caused by acute aortic dissection involving the left aortic sinus and that was reconstructed using a short reversed saphenou...