[Surgical treatment of thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm]

Graft replacement for thoracoabdomital aortic aneurysm was performed in 8 patients between 1982 and 1989. Five patients in our series underwent reattachment of the branch vessels to openings made in the graft. Partial bypass or external shunt was used in 6 patients during aortic cross-clamping. Selective blood perfusion to the branch vessels was performed in 5 patients intraoperatively. Neither hospital death nor postoperative paraplegia was found in our series. One patient without selective perfusion of abdominal branch vessels during reattachment to the graft developed an acute jaundice postoperatively, but 4 of the 5 patients receiving selective perfusion of branch vessels developed no complication related to abdominal ischemia. These results suggest that intraoperative blood perfusion of aortic branch might be useful for prevention of anoxic complication of the abdominal organs after surgery of thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm.