Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) are the thirteenth cause of death in the United States. The etiology of the disease is yet largely unknown, although several environmental risk factors (e.g., smoking) have been identified and the search for finding genetic risk factors has been initiated. The purpose of our study was to gain insight into the pathobiology of AAA by determining which genes are ex...

Methods Consecutive patients referred for cardiac MRI for repaired aortic coarctation, bicuspid aortic valve, or both were retrospectively reviewed. Patients with prior aortic valve or ascending aortic surgery were excluded, though prior coarctation intervention was not excluded. Maximum ascending aortic dimension was obtained, and averaged for patients with BAV alone, BAV and coarctation, or c...

Coarctation of the aorta, a cause of secondary hypertension, usually presents with asymmetric blood pressure of the upper and lower extremities. However, pseudocoarctation of the aorta does not have pressure gradient cross the stenotic area, so blood pressure is the same over four extremities. We describe a case of pseudocoarctation of the aorta, which presented unusually as a giant aortic arch...

Coarctation of the aorta is a common congenital defect, which although normally detected and surgically repaired in childhood may present in adolescence or adulthood, usually in the context of investigation for hypertension. The morphological spectrum of abnormalities range from a discrete stenosis distal to the left subclavian, often with extensive collateral formation, to a hypoplastic transv...

A 40-year-old man was transferred from a rural hospital with symptoms of multiorgan failure. Before admission, his antihypertensive medication had been intensified because of arterial blood pressures up to 240/120 mm Hg, which resulted in an apparently normotensive situation, measured at the right arm. At our hospital, we performed computed tomography angiography to exclude an aortic dissection...