Endovascular treatment of infected aortic aneurysms

To report on the short- and long-term outcomes of patients with primary infected aortic aneurysm (IAA) treated by stent graft (SG) in two centers.

Over a period of 15 years, 32 patients with IAA underwent endovascular treatment. None had undergone previous aortic surgery. The causal relationship was gastrointestinal infection in 9 patients (28%), endovascular diagnostic/therapeutic procedures/resuscitation in 6 (19%), wound infection after previous surgeries in 5 (16%), urinary infection in 4 (13%), urology or gastroenterology procedures in 3 (9%), pancreatitis in 2 (6%), endocarditis in 1 (3%) and phlebitis in 1 (3%) patient. We implanted 11 bifurcated, 10 tubular thoracic, 4 aorto-uni-iliac, 4 tubular abdominal and 1 iliac SG. Two other surgeries were hybrid procedures.

The etiological agent was identified in 28 (88%) patients. Twenty-six (81%) patients survived the 30-day postoperative period. Sixteen (50%) survived to 1-year follow-up and 13 (40.6%) survived to 3-year follow-up. Three patients have survived for less than 1 year and a further 3 for less than 3 years, so far. Among patients with aneurysms situated in central parts of the thoracic and infrarenal aorta there was a better death/survival ratio than among patients with a proximal or distal aneurysm location.

The implantation of a SG may be an alternative to open surgery in selected groups of patients with primary IAA. Aneurysms of the central part of the thoracic or abdominal aorta have a more favorable prognosis with endovascular treatment.