The cardiovascular pathologist in the aortic team

Aortic diseases require a multidisciplinary management for diagnosis, treatment and follow-up with better outcomes in referral centers using a team-based approach. The setting up of a multi-disciplinary aortic team for the discussion of complex cases has been already proposed; it is also supported by the ACC/AHA. Surgeons and radiologists, more or less other physicians such as cardiologists, geneticists, rheumatologists/internal medicine specialists and pathologists are involved into such a team. The role of the cardiovascular pathologist is to examine the aortic specimens, to diagnose and classify the aortic lesions. Herein, the role of the pathologist in the aortic team is discussed and the pathobiology of aortic diseases is reviewed for reference by pathologists. The aortic specimens are mainly obtained from emergency or elective surgical procedures on the thoracic aorta, less frequently from organ/tissue (including cardiac or heart valve) donors, post-mortem procedures or abdominal aortic surgery. In the last decade, together with the progress of medical sciences, the histological definitions and classifications of the aortic pathology are undergoing thorough revisions that are addressed to an etiopathogenetic approach because of possible clinico-pathological correlations, therapeutic and prognostic impact. Pathologists may also have an important role in research and teaching. Therefore, histological analyses of the aortic specimens require adequate sample processing and pathologist expertise because histology contributes to definite diagnosis, correct management of patients and even (in genetic diseases) families, but also to research in the challenging field of aortopathies.