At our knowledge this is the first study focused on ICA anomalies like kinking, coiling, and tortuosity, comparing histologic features of CCA and ICA specimens coming from the same affected carotid axis. Our results, although preliminary, show elastic and muscular tissue substituted by loose connective tissue, configuring a metaplasia of tunica media limited to the ICA. Our hypothesis is that extracranial ICA, being a segment of transition between an elastic vessel (CCA) and a muscular vessel (intracranial ICA), is particularly subject to metaplastic transformation, analogously to other transition zones in human body. Our purpose is now to confirm by ultrastructural and molecular biology techniques, in a wider series, the presence of this metaplasia, since this could condition also the revascularization techniques.

Flows within very thin channels, typically filled with spacers, can be often encountered in many processes such as electrodialysis (ED) and reverse electrodialysis (RED). Although the ED and the RED processes have been studied for a long time, the optimization of the fluid dynamics within the channels is still an open problem. In the present work, realized within the EU-FP7 funded REAPower project, computational fluid dynamics simulations were carried out in order to predict the fluid flow field inside a single ED/RED channel. Some different configurations were tested which includes: an empty channel, a channel provided with a spacer, and a channel filled with a purposely manufactured fiber porous medium. Two types of spacers were investigated: (1) a commercial type made of woven perpendicular filaments and (2) an overlapped perpendicular filament spacer. A sensitivity analysis concerning computational grid size and topology was performed. For the cases investigated, adopting the hybrid grids mainly composed of hexahedral volumes was found to be more reliable and less computational demanding than tetrahedral grids. As concerns the dependence of the pressure drops on the flow rate, the empty channel was found to guarantee the lowest pressure drops at a given fluid flow rate, as expected. Conversely, the woven spacer filled channel was found to provide larger pumping costs. The pressure drops along the channel filled with a porous medium even at low flow rate were very high thus suggesting that this specific configuration may be unsuitable and that further investigations should be devoted to this topic

The preliminary results of this real-world multicenter study showed that EVAS with Nellix for the management of AAAs appears feasible. This device platform is associated with acceptable procedure-related mortality and low overall complication and reintervention rates. Definitive conclusions on the value of this novel device await long-term follow-up data.

No aortic neck dilation occurred in this series at CT scan after a minimum 24-month follow-up. This may suggest that aortic neck evolution is not associated with EVAR at midterm follow-up when an endograft with no chronic outward radial force is implanted.

Use of the Ovation stent-graft in patients with neck length <7 mm achieved midterm outcomes similar to patients with ≥7-mm-long necks. These midterm data show that the use of the Ovation system for the treatment of infrarenal abdominal aortic aneurysm is not restricted by the conventional measurement of aortic neck length, affirming the recent Food and Drug Administration-approved changes to the IFU.