Successful surgical treatment of chronic traumatic thoracic aneurysm in two patients

We successfully treated two patients with chronic traumatic aneurysm of the thoracic aorta. The first, a 40-year-old man involved in an automobile accident 24 years earlier, was treated by thoracic aorta graft replacement via left thoracotomy under femoro-femoral partial bypass. The second, a 57-year-old man with a 3-month history of hoarseness who had suffered blunt chest trauma 17 years earlier, was treated similarly. Both had a calcified pseudoaneurysm at the isthmus of the descending aorta, but neither had atherosclerosis other than at the aneurysm site. They have done well after surgery. We believe chronic traumatic thoracic aneurysm at the aortic isthmus should be treated surgically soon after diagnosis because elective surgery presents low risk of morbidity and mortality.