A 3-month-old male infant, with diagnosis of a complex, cyanotic, congenital heart disease (double-outlet right ventricle, pulmonary stenosis, and hypoplastic pulmonary arteries, among other defects) and a double aortic arch (Fig. 1, [L, left; LCA, left carotid artery; LSA, left subclavian artery; R, right; RCA, right carotid artery; RSA, right subclavian artery]), had required a shunt from asc...

Aortic coarctation is a correctable hypertensive disease. For safety reasons and due to the invasiveness of surgical techniques, percutaneous interventions have become drastically more popular in recent times. In elderly patients with aortic coarctation who are at risk of an aortic wall aneurysm and rupture, covered stents are preferred but in younger patients, bare metal stenting may be suffic...

OBJECTIVES We sought to assess the effect of successful stenting on the Doppler profile of aortic coarctation and to identify echocardiographic indexes that could be used for follow-up of such patients. BACKGROUND Doppler echocardiography demonstrates characteristic flow patterns in significant aortic coarctation. METHODS We undertook retrospective echocardiographic analyses before and at s...

Biomechanical properties of infantile aorta in vitro in cases of different standard anastomoses: end-to-end (ETE), extended anastomosis end-to-end (EETE) and subclavian flap aortoplasty (SFA) used for surgical correction of coarctation were analyzed to detect the influence of the method on the biomechanics of infantile aorta and possible changes in haemodinamics. 10 specimens of native aorta, 3...

Combination of ruptured sinus of Valsalva aneurysm (SVA), and a coexisting asymptomatic adult aortic isthmic coarctation is extremely rare. The timing and sequence of surgical and/or interventional repair of these two pathologies are controversial. We present a case of a 37-year-old male who was admitted to our department because of severe acute congestive heart failure and signs of ruptured an...

The aim of this paper is to report a rare case of aortic coarctation with type B aortic dissection. A 37 year-old man had sudden, intense back pain. Enhanced computed tomography revealed aortic coarctation (CoA) at the proximal descending aorta and acute type B aortic dissection just distal to the CoA. The dissecting, descending aortic aneurysm had expanded to a maximal diameter of 52 mm. The a...

Aortic coarctation is quite a common congenital disease and very often associated with other cardiac malformations. A 21-year-old patient presented to our observation with aortic coarctation, aortic valve regurgitation on a dilated aortic root and chronic atrial fibrillation. We performed a two-step operation: the aortic coarctation was treated first and 1 month later a Bentall procedure associ...

A ortic coarctation was one of the first types of congenital heart diseases to be treated successfully with surgery. Despite initial optimism, surgical relief of aortic narrowing does not cure the underlying vascular problem. Patients with previously repaired coarctation have a significantly reduced life expectancy and continue to be at risk of major complications throughout life including hype...

OBJECTIVES We sought to identify the predictors of aneurysmal formation after surgical correction of aortic coarctation. BACKGROUND In 9% of patients, aneurysms develop late after corrective surgery of coarctation of the aorta, with a 36% mortality rate if left untreated. However, the predictors of postsurgical aneurysmal formation are unknown. METHODS Of 25 aortic aneurysms requiring corre...

To test the hypothesis that prostanoids contribute to angiotensin II-induced vascular contraction, we compared the effect of angiotensin II on isometric tension development by rings of descending thoracic aorta bathed in Krebs' bicarbonate buffer with and without indomethacin (10 microM) to inhibit cyclooxygenase, CGS13080 (10 microM) to inhibit thromboxane A2 synthesis, or SQ29548 (1 microM) t...