[Acute type B aortic dissection treated with endovascular implantation of a stent-graft]

Type B of the Stanford classification of dissection of the aorta is found in one third of patients with dissection of the aorta. The diagnosis of this disease is not simple. The clinical condition of these patients arouses frequently suspicion of other diseases, some diagnostic methods have a low sensitivity, other are frequently unavailable. Treatment of dissection type B may be either conservative or surgical, whereby better short-term and long-term results are recorded according to older reports by conservative methods. During recent years a new therapeutic method in type B dissection of the aorta is endovascular implantation of a stentgraft at the site of the false entry into the lumen. So far there does not exist any long-term investigation of patients with dissection of the aorta type B after stentgraft implantation. According to contemporary knowledge this new method could be used in patients with dissection of the aorta type B and reverse the hitherto adverse course of the disease. Our description of a case draws attention to the difficult diagnosis of this serious disease--dissection of the aorta--and demonstrates at the same time this new therapeutic method.