Acute and chronic aortic diseases have been diagnosed and studied by physicians for
centuries. Both the diagnosis and treatment of aortic diseases have been steadily
improving over time, largely because of increased physician awareness and improvements
in diagnostic modalities. This comprehensive review discusses the pathophysiology
and risk factors, classification schemes, epidemiology, clinical presentations, diagnostic
modalities, management options, and outcomes of various aortic conditions, including
acute aortic dissection (and its variants intramural hematoma and penetrating aortic
ulcers) and thoracic aortic aneurysms. Literature searches of the PubMed database
were conducted using the following keywords: aortic dissection, intramural hematoma, aortic ulcer, and thoracic aortic aneurysm. Retrospective and prospective studies performed within the past 20 years were included
in the review; however, most data are from the past 15 years.
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Article info
Footnotes
On completion of this article, you should be able to (1) describe the pathophysiology and major risk factors for acute aortic syndromes and thoracic aortic aneurysm, (2) identify the common clinical presentations of patients with acute aortic syndromes and ruptured thoracic aortic aneurysm, and (3) list the major imaging modalities to diagnose acute aortic syndromes and thoracic aortic aneurysm, along with their respective advantages and disadvantages.
Identification
Copyright
© 2009 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
