title: Spinal cord protection with distal perfusion for thoracic and thoracoabdominal aortic surgery.
abstract: Spinal cord protection is of extreme importance to avoid the catastrophic complication of paraplegia related to surgery for thoracic and thoracoabdominal aortic disease.P-' Spinal cord injury from surgi- cally induced ischemia for aortic surgery has a variable risk of paraplegia. The incidence of spinal cord injury varies extensively-aneurysms of the proximal descending thoracic aorta and thoracoabdominal aorta 3% to 35%;to repair of traumatic rupture of the thoracic aorta performed with simple cross-clamping with- out distal perfusion, 25%;to repair of acute type B dissections of the thoracoabdominal aorta, as high as 35%.
authors.affiliation: Vancouver Hospital and Health Sciences Centre, St. Paul's Hospital and Health Centre (University Heart Centre), University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
authors.forename: W R
authors.initials: WR
authors.lastname: Jamieson
authors.forename: M T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Janusz
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ling