Two Cases of Aortic Intramural Hematoma Diagnosed with Transesophageal Echocardiography

ABSTRACT

Aortic intramural hematoma(AIH) is known as a variant of acute dissection due to rupture of the vasa vasorum without a intimal tear. In elderly hypertension patients patients with aortic dissection but without the characteristic echocardiographic findings of a double-channel aorta, this disease entity should be suspected and attention should be given to find segmental wall thickening of the aorta >0.7cm. AIH may progress to typical dissection or to rupture in considerable number of the patients, so careful follow-up is necessary and the same management principles for the patients with dissection can be applied in this variant. We report two cases of AIH showing typical eccentric mural thickening without dissection membrane with transesophageal echocardiographic follow-up.