Aortic pseudoaneurysm after endarterectomy for small aorta syndrome.

INTRODUCTION: Small Aorta Syndrome (SAS) or hypoplastic aorto-iliac syndrome is a rare pathology of the aorta that affects almost exclusively young or middle-aged women and is characterized by smaller dimension of the aorta and iliac axes. Etiopathogenesis is unclear and many factors have been invoked. The smaller caliber of the aorta and iliac arteries may predispose to aorto-iliac occlusive disease development. In the past aorto-iliac endarterectomy (AE) with patch closure was utilized as an alternative to surgical bypass in order to correct steno-obstructive syndromes affecting carriers of SAS. Little is known about long term outcomes of this type of surgery. PRESENTATION OF THE CASE: During investigations for acute colecystitis, an aortic pseudoaneurysm (PA) was diagnosed by ultrasound in a 73 old year woman. She was submitted twenty-two years ago for SAS with disabling claudication to aortic endarterectomy (AE) with patch graft insertion. Considering all the vascular options available she was submitted to open surgery with replacement of the aortic bifurcation. DISCUSSION: Aortic PA is a relatively common complication after bypass surgery but is rarely observed after AE. It requires prompt intervention to prevent subsequent complications such as rupture, thrombosis, distal embolism or aorto-enteric fistula. CONCLUSION: Endovascular treatment for aortic PA should be always considered the treatment of choice but the open surgical option was preferred in this particular case because of the small diameters of the iliac accesses, making them unsuitable for an endovascular approach.

Early complications in endovascular treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysm.

OBJECTIVE: The incidence of perioperative complications during endovascular repair of abdominal aortic aneurysm (EVAR) is reported in limited series. The aim of this study is to evaluate a multi-center survey of unexpected intraprocedural critical events of EVAR. METHODS: A questionnaire relative to intraprocedural complications during EVAR was sent to major vascular surgery divisions in Italy. Eleven answered to the survey. The data obtained are relative to 1696 procedures. RESULTS: A wide range of incidence of critical events was observed, from a lower value of 2.7% to a higher value of 68.8% (mean 21.16%). The problems relative to the insertion phase of the delivery system were 7.7%. Endoleaks were reported in 5.5% of cases. Stent graft release was problematic in 0.4% of cases and in another 0.4% there was a problem in shaft retrieval. Unintentional coverage of renal or polar arteries occurred in 0.8% of the procedures ; hypogastric arteries were unwillingly excluded in 2.7% of cases. Aortic or iliac artery rupture had an incidence of 0.7% ; arterial dissection occurred in 0.9%, atheroembolism in 0.5%, lower limb ischemia due to graft limb kinks in 0.7% and to occlusion in 0.9%. CONCLUSIONS: Perioperative critical events represent a serious problem only in few cases of EVAR ; they are common but in many cases not predictable ; in most circumstances they can be easily corrected with adjunctive manoeuvres during the same procedure. There is a highly significant correlation between the total workload and the incidence of critical events ; these do not appear to be related to the learning curve.

Role of bypass, endarterectomy, extra-anatomic bypass and endovascular surgery in unilateral iliac occlusive disease: a review of 1257 cases.

Some 1257 patients who had undergone revascularization procedures for unilateral iliac occlusions were reviewed retrospectively. A total of 824 patients were operated upon using conventional operations, 165 patients had femorofemoral bypass and 268 were treated using endovascular surgery techniques. Revascularization was performed through an extraperitoneal approach by means of iliac thromboendarterectomy (560) or iliac femoral bypass (264) if there was a total occlusion of either the common or external iliac artery (group 1). A femorofemoral crossover bypass was inserted when the operative risk was considered to be high (group 2). Endovascular procedures (percutaneous transluminal angioplasty 234, laser percutaneous transluminal angioplasty 11, stenting 22, atherectomy one) were used in recent years to treat stenoses or occlusions of 3 cm or less (group 3). The indications for operation were severe claudication in 79.7% in group 1 and 92.6% in group 3, whereas in group 2 66.7% of patients presented with symptoms of more advanced ischaemia. The immediate patency rate was 97.0% after extraperitoneal reconstructive surgery, 96.9% in the femorofemoral group and 92.1% in patients having an endovascular procedure. The operative mortality rate was 0.7, 4.2, and 0.3% for groups 1-3, respectively. The 5-year patency rate, analysed by the life-table method, was 77.9% in group 1, 75.3% in group 2 and 73.7% in group 3 (P = n.s., log rank test). The different revascularization techniques were chosen on the basis of the type of disease present and the patient's general condition. All procedures appeared to be effective when correctly selected.

Intraoperative transluminal angioplasty of recurrent carotid stenosis.

A 61-year-old female presented with symptomatic recurrent left internal carotid stenosis. A method of intraoperative balloon dilatation under protective clamping of the common carotid artery is described.

PTA and laser assisted PTA combined with simultaneous surgical revascularization.

In this study we investigated the efficacy of percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) and laser percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (LPTA) as an adjunct to surgery in patients with peripheral vascular disease. We report 84 cases of the simultaneous association of direct arterial surgery and angioradiological procedures to treat 82 patients with arterial occlusive disease of the lower limbs. Sixty-five patients (79.2%) were affected by severe claudication and 14 (19.6%) presented with rest pain or gangrene. One patient (1.2%) had signs of acute ischemia. PTA or LPTA were utilized as an inflow procedure in 41 cases (48.8%), as an outflow procedure in 24 (28.6%) and in 19 cases (22.6%) to recanalize an arterial occlusion in the contralateral limb opposite to surgical interventions. Immediate postoperative patency was achieved in 79 cases (94.0%), while in 5 cases (6.0%) it was impossible to perform a satisfactory balloon dilatation. The complication rate was 16.6%: 10 perioperative thromboses, 1 plaque dissection, 1 peripheral embolus, 1 haemorrhage and 1 femoral nerve lesion. No perioperative mortality occurred in this group of patients. Long term patency, analyzed with the life-table method (mean follow-up: 28 months) was respectively 78.0%, 76.3% and 78.9% at 5 years. These data indicate that the combined revascularization technique should always be recommended in properly selected patients because it is less invasive, the surgical risk and operative time are reduced and associated with early and long term cumulative patency rates comparable to those of extensive surgery.

Pharmacokinetics of enteric-coated aspirin and inhibition of platelet thromboxane A2 and vascular prostacyclin generation in humans.

We evaluated whether an enteric-coated aspirin formulation showed a "presystemic" component in its antiplatelet effect and if so would spare vascular cyclooxygenase. In six healthy volunteers, 30 to 45 minutes after ingestion of 325 mg enteric-coated aspirin, platelet thromboxane A2 generation was inhibited by about 20% before any drug could be detected in the peripheral venous blood. A further decline in thromboxane A2 generation occurred with appearance of aspirin in blood between 60 and 240 minutes. No presystemic component could be detected after 325 mg aspirin tablets. Ten patients undergoing saphenectomy received 325 mg of either aspirin tablet or enteric-coated aspirin; 12 hours later platelet thromboxane A2 and peripheral vascular prostacyclin generation were significantly reduced by 98% and 58%, respectively. The effects of the two aspirin formulations were not different. Aspirin formulations with "presystemic" component in their antiplatelet effect may not necessarily result in sparing of peripheral vascular cyclooxygenase.