Aortic diseases have high mortality and are usually late or misdiagnosed. Especially in patients with inflammatory vasculitis, diagnosis is often confused with other causes of chest pain and this ...causes a delay in diagnosis. Vascular complications are the most important predictors of mortality and morbidity in Behcet’s disease and also polyarteritis nodosa. The diagnosis of aortitis is usually obtained by vascular imaging, but partly made only by biopsy on occasion of an operation. Here we present a case of pathologically proven fatal aortitis and aortic dissection in a patient with Polyarteritis nodosa and Behcet's disease.
Secondary infection of the aorta is a sporadic and life-threatening disease. It is usually caused by infection and abscess in an adjacent structure. The most common mechanism for secondary aortic ...infection is a psoas abscess eroding the aortic wall, which rarely results in non-aneurysmal aortic rupture. Primary treatment is surgical aortic reconstruction, but the risk of emergency surgical treatment is high. Endovascular aortic stent-graft implantation can be lifesaving in this setting by stopping the bleeding. However, the crucial question of durability and late infections remains unanswered and warrants long-term antibiotic treatment and follow-up. In this report, we present a case of primary psoas abscess, which resulted in non-aneurysmal aortic rupture and its endovascular treatment.
Constrictive pericarditis (CP) consists of pericardial fibrotic thickening and calcification and causes the impaired diastolic filling of the ventricles. Echocardiography and other imaging modalities ...and left-right cardiac catheterization are used for diagnosis. The standard treatment for chronic CP is pericardiectomy. However, in the transient form of the disease, anti-inflammatory therapy should be the primary treatment option. In two cases of CP, the diagnostic process and the importance of distinguishing the chronic form of the disease from the transient form, and the difference in the two treatment modalities have been highlighted.
Aims: Vitamin D plays a role in controlling the function of vascular smooth muscle and endothelial cells, even in the pulmonary artery. We hypothesized that pulmonary artery elasticity were ...comprimised in individuals with relatively low vitamin D levels. Methods: Adult individuals with the complaint of shortness of breath were enrolled. They were divided into 2 groups according to vitamin D levels, with a cut-off of 20 ng/mL. Pulmonary artery stiffness (PAS) was calculated using the following formula: PAS (kHz/sec) = maximal frequency shift/pulmonary acceleration time. The six-minute walk distance (6MWD) was used to assess the functional exercise capability of subjects. Results: A total of 71 individuals (male: 31%) were enrolled. Subjects with low vitamin D levels had lower 6MWD than subjects with higher vitamin D levels (443.58 + or - 56.20 m vs. 483.20 + or - 58.43 m, p=0.007). The PAS was significantly higher in individuals with vitamin D level <20 ng/mL compared with subjects with vitamin D level > 20 ng/mL (11.65 + or - 3.76 vs. 9.46 + or - 2.53, respectively, p=0.011). Multiple regression showed that vitamin D level was inversely associated with PAS (beta=-0.280, p=0.009). Conclusions: We found that PAS was associated with lower vitamin D levels. Vitamin D deficiency might involved in the dynamics of the pulmonary artery vasculature, even in the absence of significant pulmonary artery pressure elevation. Keywords: Vitamin D level, pulmonary artery stiffness, echocardiography
Secondary infection of the aorta is a sporadic and life-threatening disease. It is usually caused by infection and abscess in an adjacent structure. The most common mechanism for secondary aortic ...infection is a psoas abscess eroding the aortic wall, which rarely results in non-aneurysmal aortic rupture. Primary treatment is surgical aortic reconstruction, but the risk of emergency surgical treatment is high. Endovascular aortic stent-graft implantation can be lifesaving in this setting by stopping the bleeding. However, the crucial question of durability and late infections remains unanswered and warrants long-term antibiotic treatment and follow-up. In this report, we present a case of primary psoas abscess, which resulted in non-aneurysmal aortic rupture and its endovascular treatment.
PDF
