[Redo surgery for residual distal dissection after the limited proximal aortic replacement for Stanford type A acute...

Redo surgery for residual distal dissection after the limited proximal aortic repair for Stanford type A acute aortic dissection remains challenging with some difficulties. In essence, redo aortic repair predominantly depends on the significantly dilated parts of the residual dissection. According to that, the strategy including median or lateral approach and 1 or 2 staged repair would be determined with careful consideration for patients' age and function of the vital organs such as brain, heart, lung, liver, and kidney. Generally, for relatively young and low-risk patients, an aggressive 1 stage repair of the entire arch to descending aorta through a left thoracotomy is feasible. Meanwhile, 2 stage repair is beneficial for elderly high-risk patients, which consists of the 1st total arch replacement with elephant trunk through a median sternotomy followed secondly by the open descending aortic repair through a lateral thoracotomy or recently-advanced less-invasive endovascular aortic repair. In the initial repair, more aggressive total arch replacement with elephant trunk or frozen elephant trunk might be another useful option to potentially prevent such troublesome behaviors of the residual dissecting aorta requiring redo surgery in the late stage.