is a catastrophic complication of endo− vascular graft placement [1]. The typical symptom of secondary AEF is massive gastrointestinal bleeding with a history of thoracic aortic aneurysm repair [2]. En− doscopy is the most sensitive and specific diagnostic study [3]. Endoscopy should be carefully performed, as it excludes other, more common causes of upper gas− trointestinal bleeding, but shoul...

POSTOPERATIVE paraplegia resulting from spinal cord ischemia is a devastating complication of thoracic aneurysm (TA) or thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm (TAAA) surgery. Permanent neurologic deficits are a major cause of morbidity and may shorten long-term survival. Factors that are associated with the development of paraplegia are previous aortic surgery, preoperative renal function, age, aorti...

A 49-year-old woman with a 27-year history of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) was admitted to our hospital with sudden-onset severe back pain. An emergency multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) revealed a ruptured thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm (TAAA) 80 mm in diameter. Considering her condition and comorbidities, we performed an emergency hybrid treatment: visceral reconstruction follo...

Type IV thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysms (TAAAs) affect the aorta between the diaphragm and aortic bifurcation (Fig. 1). For technical reasons, the aneurysms affecting only the part of aorta from which visceral arteries arise are also categorized as type IV. The level of difficulty of surgical treatment for type IV TAAAs lies between that of type II, which involve descending thoracic and abdom...

INTRODUCTION Ortner's syndrome is defined as left recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy caused by a cardiovascular pathology. Here we report the case of a 68-year-old man who presented to our hospital with hoarseness, whose initial chest imaging mimicked a thoracic neoplastic process with left pleural effusion. The final diagnosis was Ortner's syndrome due to the silent rupture of a thoracoabdominal ...