Stent Grafts for Acute Traumatic Injury of the Thoracic Aorta: A Single-Centre Experience

The presented study reveals the single centre experiences with the minimally invasive endovascular repair for acute traumatic thoracic aortic lesions in the care of multitrauma patients.

We reviewed ten patients with acute traumatic thoracic aortic lesions treated with a thoracic aortic stent graft between April 2001 and December 2006. The prospective collected data included age, sex, injury severity score, type of endovascular graft, endovascular operation time, length of stay, length of stay in the intensive care unit, and mortality. Followup data consisted of contrast-enhanced spiral computed tomography at regular intervals.

All patients (m:f 5:5; median age, 46 years; interquartile range [IQR], 29-68.5 years) suffered severe traumatic injury, the median Injury Severity Score was 39.5 (IQR 37.3-43). All endovascular procedures were technically successful, and the median operating time for the endovascular procedure was 90 min (IQR, 65-120 min). The overall hospital mortality was 20% (n = 2), and all deaths were unrelated to the aortic rupture or stent placement. No incidence of paraplegia was present. No intervention-related mortality occurred during a median follow-up of 14.7 months (IQR, 9.7-55.8 months).

The endovascular approach to acute traumatic thoracic aortic lesions is feasible, safe, and effective in multitrauma patients. The low endovascular therapy-related morbidity and mortality in the postoperative period is encouraging. The results seem to be favorable to those published of open emergency repair.