Endovascular Treatment of Blunt Traumatic Thoracic Aortic Injury

Blunt traumatic thoracic aortic injury (BTTAI) is a lethal injury associated with a prehospital mortality of 80% to 90%. Patients arriving in the emergency room and considered appropriate to undergo emergency open surgical repair still have a mortality rate of 15% to 30% because of severe associated injuries. Conventional open surgical repair requires a left thoracotomy, single lung ventilation, aortic-cross clamping and unclamping, with or without the adjunct use of partial or full cardiopulmonary bypass and systemic heparinization. All this leads to significant physiological stress and surgical trauma resulting in perioperative complications such as major blood loss, coagulopathy, myocardial infarction, stroke, respiratory failure, renal failure, bowel infarction, and paraplegia. Despite advances in anesthesia, critical care medicine, and surgical techniques, a recent meta-analysis showed no definite improvement in operative mortality over the past decade, following open surgical repair in patients with BTTAI. Endovascular repair of BTTAI does not require a thoracotomy, single lung ventilation, aorticcross clamping and unclamping, or systemic heparinization. As a result, endovascular repair of BTTAI has emerged as an effective, minimally invasive treatment alternative, especially in patients with severe concomitant injuries, which may be prohibitive to open surgical repair. Recent published studies have shown that endovascular repair of BTTAI is associated with lower morbidity, mortality, stroke, and paraplegia/paraparesis rates, when compared with open surgical repair of BTTAI.