Despite much advancement in preoperative evaluation and perioperative care of patients with thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysms (TAAA), open surgical repair of TAAAs remains a formidable challenge for the vascular surgeon. It requires extensive dissection and mobilization of the aorta and its branches, as well as cross-clamping of the aorta above intercostal and visceral arteries. Over the past d...

BACKGROUND Dihydropiridine calcium-channel blockers are often used as an alternative to beta-blockers for the treatment of hypertension in patients undergoing aortic aneurysm surgery. We studied the relation between dihydropiridine calcium-channel blocker use and perioperative mortality in patients undergoing aortic aneurysm surgery. METHODS We studied 1000 patients [mean (range) age, 69 (22-...

Different methods for spinal cord ischemia (SCI) prevention with sac perfusion are reported before the completion of endovascular thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm repair; however, today there no described techniques reperfusion in case SCI occurring after complete exclusion (48-72 hours). The “safe-line” technique allows a simple and fast (within 1 hour from symptom onset) up to 72 hours comple...

bicuspid aortic valve is traditionally considered an innocuous congenital anomaly. due to a better and widespread availability of non-invasive imaging techniques, it has come to the fore that 30% of these cases develop complications, viz., valve abnormality (aortic regurgitation and stenosis), and aneurysm of aortic root and ascending aorta. sinus of valsalva aneurysm is an uncommon complicatio...

Correspondence and requests for reprints to James I. Fann, MD, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Falk Cardiovascular Research Center, Stanford University Medical School, Stanford, California 94305-5247, USA. Tel: þ1 650 858 3917; fax: þ1 650 723 7110; e-mail: [email protected] Introduction Since the incidence of thoracic aortic aneurysms are over five cases per 100 000 person-years, patien...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate CAD prevalence in patients with aortic aneurysm, as well as differences related to aneurysm topographies. To describe the primary risk factors for CAD related to this association and their occasional differences according to AA topographies. METHODS This was an open, prospective, nonrandomized study that evaluated 95 patients (66 men and 33 women, mean age 63 +/- 11.8). ...

Aortic dissection is common in patients undergoing open surgical repair of thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm (TAAA). Most often, this manifests as chronic with progressive dilatation. Because contemporary outcomes are not clearly understood, we compared patient characteristics and after TAAA between those non-dissection aneurysm. We retrospectively analyzed data from 3700 repairs performed withi...

We describe our experience in 10 patients (5 males) undergoing resection of a descending thoracic aortic aneurysm or a thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm in which a modified shed whole blood collection and autotransfusion system was used. This modification allows several options for the processing and autotransfusion of shed blood: use of the cell saving device or the ultrafiltration of collected...