BACKGROUND Thoracic aortic aneurysms (TAAs) are less prevalent than abdominal aortic aneurysms. Symptomatic TAAs need to be identified quickly by the emergency physician (EP) since mortality rates increase dramatically once complications such as rupture or dissection occur. Compared with validated EP-performed ultrasound of the abdominal aorta, EP-performed focused cardiac ultrasound that inclu...

Traumatic aorta rupture survival depends on early diagnosis requiring aortography. Aortography is the "gold standard" method, but it is time-consuming and may be dangerous in trauma patients with multiple organ injuries. Transesophageal echocardiography is a noninvasive technology that can be performed at the bedside. We report two cases in which transesophageal echocardiography enabled us to m...

E ndovascular grafting is being increasingly used to treat aortic aneurysms and dissections. However, patients with aneurysmal dissections involving both the thoracic and abdominal aorta are particularly challenging to treat because of the natural communications at the level of the visceral arteries, particularly in the presence of a defined connective tissue disease. Reports of hybrid procedur...

A forty four years old male patient presented with headache and dizziness in our outpatient department. On examination, he had pulse rate of 96 /min, blood pressure of 122/80 mmHg, JVP was not raised. He had clubbing and cyanosis on General physical examination. On auscultation pansystolic murmur was heard all over the chest. His respiratory and abdominal examination was normal. There were no s...

Between February 1982 and December 1992 we operated on five patients (three men, two women; aged 40 to 70 years) with mycotic aneurysms of the thoracic aorta. One patient had an aneurysm of the ascending aorta, once the aortic arch and in three cases the descending thoracic aorta were involved. In four of the five patients, excision of the aneurysm and in situ reconstruction of the aorta with a...

The effects of trandolapril (0.25 mg/kg body wt per 48 hours) on aortic atherosclerosis were examined in the Watanabe heritable hyperlipidemic rabbit treated from 3 to 12 months of age. Trandolapril caused a significant decrease in atherosclerotic involvement of the intimal surface of total aorta from 56.3 +/- 5.0% in control Watanabe rabbits to 35.0 +/- 4.1% with treatment (p less than 0.01). ...

background multiple classifications can be used to define the magnitude of aortic injury. the vancouver classification (vc) is a new and simplified computed tomography-based blunt aortic injury (bai) grading system correlating with clinical outcomes. objectives the objectives of this study are: 1) to describe the severity of aortic injury in a center with a predominantly surgical approach to ba...

We present a case of a 14 year old Caucasian male who underwent initially successful endovascular repair of a traumatic injury to the descending thoracic aorta. The patient had undiagnosed Factor V Leiden at the time of the endovascular repair. He later presented with thrombosis of the endovascular stent graft, necessitating open removal of the stent graft and replacement of the involved aorta ...

OBJECTIVES To establish an animal model of proximal descending thoracic aortic aneurysm for the study of branched stent grafts. MATERIALS AND METHODS Eleven mongrel dogs underwent the surgical procedure during which an autologous pericardial patch was sewn onto a longitudinal incision in the anterolateral wall of the thoracic aorta near the left subclavian artery to create an artificial thora...

UNLABELLED STUDY OBJECTIVES AND DESIGN: Arterial vasoconstriction is thought to play a role in the etiology of cocaine-induced cardiovascular complications, but little is known about the immediate effects of cocaine on the thoracic aorta and coronary arteries. To examine these effects, we used transesophageal echocardiography to examine the thoracic aorta and coronary arteries before and immedi...