Evolving Approaches to Thoracoabdominal Aortic Aneurysm Repair: Open Surgical and Endovascular Treatment Using Fenestrated/Branched Endografts

Abstract

Open repair remains the standard of care for the treatment of patients with thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysms. However, due to the magnitude of the operation and a typically older patient population with extensive comorbidities, less invasive methods of repair have received increasing acceptance-despite lack of long-term data on durability when compared with open surgical repair. One of the most dreaded complications of both open and endovascular thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysms repair (for patient and surgeon alike) remains the development of paraplegia, a complication that can be minimized with the techniques described herein.