[Contemporary therapeutic management of adult's congenital aortic coarctation]

Adult congenital aortic coarctation is an entity rarely seen in clinical practice. It is commonly diagnosed and managed in the early stages of life, mean in the neo-natal or young children's ages. Some cases however can be overlooked at this scrutinity and become recognizable at later stages, in adulthood, through symptoms and signs resulting from the deep hemodynamic deregulation caused by the disease in the proximal and distal aortic physiology, requiring often imperative therapeutic repair. In this paper, an extensive revision is made on the main pathologic, clinical and diagnostic features of the disease, culminating in a critical analysis on the contemporary therapeutic methods available, which includes the conventional open surgery and the endovascular intervention, which includes the balloon angioplasty, the stenting and the covered stents.