Late traumatic aortic dissection

Ascending Aortic Injuries Following Blunt Trauma

“…The diagnosis was confirmed upon admission in 12 of 16 patients (75%); delayed diagnosis was made in four of 16 patients (30%) . The delay time was between a few days to three months …”

“…We reviewed cases of ascending aortic injury from 1998 to present using PubMed with the search terms “traumatic ascending aortic injury.” We found 43 cases (including our present patient presentation) in the literature and details are summarized in Table and Table . There were five cohort observations which included 24 cases (Table ) and 19 case reports (Table ) . The patients demographics were available in a total of 19 cases, which consisted of the majority of male patients with mean age of 45.4 years old (Table ).…”

“…The injury was caused by motor vehicle accident (MVA) in 15 of 19 patients (78.9%), crush injury in 4 of 19 patients (12, 15, and 16, ours) (21%) and explosion injury in one patient (5.2%) …”

“…Associated injuries were reported in 16 of 19 patients (84.2%) including cardiac injury, pulmonary injury, bone fractures, and closed head injuries . Aortic valve injury and regurgitation occurred in five of 19 patients (26.3%), and all of these five patients had their aortic valve replaced …”

“…CT scans were used in 14 of 16 patients (87.5%) (8–16, 18, ours) and TEE was used in eight of 16 patients (50%) for diagnosis. Four of 16 patients (25%) underwent diagnostic aortography …”