Surgical Strategy for Injury of the Thoracic Aorta with Multiple Injuries

Penetrating stab injury of the thoracic aorta.

A36-year-old male psychiatric nurse was stabbed in the back with a knife by a patient suffering from acute psychosis. After initial treatment in an outside hospital, he was transferred in stable cardiopulmonary condition to our department because a lung injury was suspected (Figure 1). Computed tomography performed while the knife was still in place showed that the blade had penetrated the prox...

[Acute injuries of the thoracic aorta and its branches].

The surgical treatment of acquired aneurysm of the thoracic aorta

The surgical treatment of an aneurysm of the abdominal aorta is a well-established procedure with fairly clear-cut indications and limitations. Treatment of an aneurysm of the thoracic aorta, on the other hand, is a more hazardous procedure that requires partial or total cardiac bypass with hypothermia, either moderate or profound, with or without local cooling of the heart. The reason for this...

Conventional surgical repair of traumatic rupture of the thoracic aorta

OBJECTIVE Traumatic rupture of the thoracic aorta is a life-threatening injury requiring urgent surgical intervention. Despite recent improvements in resuscitation and emergency operative techniques, the outcomes of patients with multiple injuries are still associated with a high mortality rate. We retrospectively examined the preoperative demographic data, associated complications and mortalit...

Late complications after surgical exclusion of the thoracic aorta.

Two patients who underwent surgical exclusion of the thoracic aorta for chronic dissecting aneurysms of the descending aorta died 4 and 8 years after surgery due to complications in part related to the operative technique. One patient developed pseudoaneurysm of the proximal aortic stump with fatal exsanguination through an aortapulmonary fistula. The other patient developed progressive dilatat...