title: Endovascular treatment of thoracic aortic diseases: Follow-up and complications with multi-detector computed tomography angiography.
abstract: Endovascular procedures with placement of stent-graft has become an accepted alternative to traditional open surgery for treatment of descending thoracic aortic aneurysms, ulcers, post-traumatic rupture, or complications of type-B dissection, due to significant reduction in perioperative mortality, rate of complications and length of hospitalization. Moreover, increasing operator experience and continuous advances in stent-graft technology are making treatment of a wider range of cases possible with redefinition of guidelines for endovascular stent-graft. The feasibility of endovascular stent-graft is mainly dependent on anatomic factors which represent the important predictors of the success of this procedure as well as on strictly follow-up in order to obtain early detection and treatment of eventual complications. Multi-detector CT-angiography is a fast, safe, and minimally invasive imaging technique that represents the standard of reference in the follow-up of patients who have undergone endovascular stent-graft, as it is effective and specific in the detection of procedure-correlated complications. The purpose of this article is to give a brief review of those techniques most commonly used for endovascular treatment of thoracic aortic diseases together with a more detailed description of post-procedural complications and their appearance on multi-detector CT-angiography.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University G. D'Annunzio, Chieti, Italy. r.iezzi@rad.unich.it
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Iezzi
authors.forename: Antonio Raffaele
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Cotroneo
authors.forename: Riccardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Marano
authors.forename: Antonella
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Filippone
authors.forename: Maria Luigia
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Storto
mesh_terms: D000792:Angiography; D001013:Aorta, Thoracic; D001018:Aortic Diseases / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000601:surgery*; D019917:Blood Vessel Prosthesis Implantation; D003287:Contrast Media; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D011857:Radiographic Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted; D015607:Stents; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D003287:Contrast Media