Aortic valve rupture, secondary to aortic valve endocarditis, was diagnosed echocardiographically and closely followed preoperatively. The ruptured left coronary cusp of the aortic valve was seen as dense irregular echoes, located anteriorly during ventricular diastole, and protruding into the left ventricular outflow tract in an otherwise normally appearing aortic valve. These echocardiographi...

Aortic aneurysms are a common clinical condition that can cause death due to aortic dissection or rupture. The association between aortic aneurysm pathogenesis and altered TGF-β signaling has been the subject of numerous investigations. Recently, a TGF-β-responsive microRNA (miR), miR-29, has been identified to play a role in cellular phenotypic modulation during aortic development and aging. I...

T he surgical repair of descending and thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysms began in the early 1950s, and has been traditionally associated with a high mortality rate and a significant risk of paraplegia and multiple organ complications. Crawford classified thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysms into four categories based on the extent of the aneurysm (Figure 1). According to this classification, exten...

UNLABELLED Although hundreds of samples obtained from ascending thoracic aortic aneurysms (ATAA) of patients undergoing elective surgical repair have already been characterized biomechanically, their rupture properties were always derived from uniaxial tensile tests. Due to their bulge shape, ATAAs are stretched biaxially in vivo. In order to understand the biaxial rupture of ATAAs, our group d...

BACKGROUND Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) in humans are associated with locally increased oxidative stress and activity of NADPH oxidase. We investigated the hypothesis that vitamin E, an antioxidant with documented efficacy in mice, can attenuate AAA formation during angiotensin II (Ang II) infusion in apolipoprotein E-deficient mice. METHODS AND RESULTS Six-month-old male apolipoprotein ...

Sinus of Valsalva aneurysm (SVA) is an uncommon anomaly of the aorta. Rupture of SVA often precipitates dramatic clinical complications, including heart failures. Right SVAs are the most common type, and when they rupture, they usually rupture into the right ventricle or right atrium. Rupture into left ventricle or interventricular septum is rare. Herein, we report a case of right SVA rupture w...

Giant pseudoaneurysm of the ascending aorta is a rare but dreadful complication occurring several months or years after aortic surgery. Thoracic aortic aneurysms tend to be asymptomatic and were previously often diagnosed only after a complication such as dissection or rupture. We present a rare case of giant ascending aneurysm with Stanford type A aortic dissection occurring 6 years after aort...

It still remains undetermined whether endovascular stent-graft placement (ESGP) is the optimal initial treatment for elective cases of thoracic aortic disease because of unknown long-term results. However, it is also recognized that ESGP contributes to better outcome as an initial treatment for aortic emergency, such as rupture, aortic injury, and complicated acute type B aortic dissection. Des...

Page Preamble ..................................................................1642 Introduction.............................................................1643 Aortic wall disease...................................................1643 Inherited disease ..................................................1643 Aortic disease in infancy and childhood .............1645 Ageing of the aorta............

Most aortic aneurysms are detected incidentally in patients presenting for other illnesses. The prevalence of thoracic aortic aneurysms is in the order of 3-4% in individuals older than 65 years. Aneurysms of the thoraco-abdominal aorta are primarily due to atherosclerotic degenerative disease (80%) and due to chronic aortic dissection in the remaining 20%. The morbidity and mortality from aort...