Rupture of the aorta: what if it happened?

With age, the human body changes - its tissues lose elasticity and elasticity, which causes a lot of problems. Blood that is transported throughout the body creates a constant pulsating pressure on the walls of the vessels, and it is in the aorta-the largest vessel of the body - that the level of such pressure is the highest.

In cases where the walls of the aorta lose their elasticity when deposits of atherosclerotic masses are deposited, or in cases when arterial inflammation arises, the blood eventually flows into layers between the layers of the vessel walls, thus provoking further stratification. When the process spreads to all three layers of the blood vessel wall, a rupture of the aorta occurs, which can provoke huge blood loss and lead to an instantaneous lethal outcome.

Causes of aortic rupture and course of the disease

With a congenital weakness of the connective tissue, aortic rupture often occurs - the cause of the disease in this case is explained by a change in the structure of the wall of this large blood vessel. In this case, the pathological process develops very quickly - usually from the beginning of the separation to the onset of profuse internal bleeding, no more than 14 days pass.

In some cases( but extremely rarely), an aneurysm is opened into the vessel, which is achieved by self-breaking tissue in another place of the vessel and bleeding does not occur - blood from the rupture site returns to the systemic circulation and self-healing may occur.

Age-related changes, diseases and metabolic disorders can also cause aortic rupture - the causes are due to changes in the elasticity of the blood vessel wall, and any sudden drop in blood pressure can trigger the process of lamination. These diseases include atherosclerosis, which caused significant changes in the vessel, hypertension, accompanied by significant fluctuations in blood pressure, closed trauma to the abdominal or thoracic cavity, damage to the vessel by any related process( for example, esophageal cancer) or a foreign body.

It should be remembered that any infection of the inner layer of the vessel, including syphilis, can provoke a rupture of the aorta.

Most patients die in the first two weeks in the absence of adequate treatment. The rupture of the aorta in the abdominal region occurs most often, men suffer more than women who are less susceptible and atherosclerosis. In general, an aneurysm develops in people after 60 years, but it is extremely difficult to detect it. In most cases an aneurysm is accidentally detected during the ultrasound of the abdominal cavity.

The main problem of diagnostics is that at first the patient does not have any ailments, only with a specialized examination reveals a small pulsation in the abdomen. Aortic rupture can occur at any second, without any precursors.

Symptoms of aortic rupture

Usually aortic rupture does not manifest itself with any specific signs, the patient can complain of a feeling of discomfort and a little pain. Only after the onset of bleeding can you identify internal bleeding and hemorrhagic shock. Individual organ symptoms completely depend on the location of the aneurysm or the site of the subsequent hemorrhage. In some cases, syncope or severe pain in different parts of the body is possible, if the bundle occurs next to the neural bundle.

This is why it is important to exclude this diagnosis in any acute pathology of the abdominal organs, often in elderly patients there are simultaneously "acute abdomen" and aortic rupture - the symptoms of these diseases have a certain similarity, especially with a small aneurysm size. The rupture of the aorta of the heart( the ascending part and the arch of the vessel) is often manifested by a sharp deterioration in the patient's condition and almost immediately causes the patient's death.

Treatment of

There is only one way to treat this condition - surgical intervention. It is possible to use an open surgical operation, that is, the peritoneum is opened, the deformed portion is removed, and a synthetic prosthesis corresponding to the diameter of the vessel is installed instead. A more modern method of treatment has become intravascular - with it, the intervention is carried out endovascularly.

An operative access site becomes the femoral artery in the groin or carotid artery at the neck-the parts of the prosthesis are brought to their destination and assembled there in a single whole.

This method of treatment is indicated if plaques are detected in the carotid artery - at the same time an endoscopic operation aimed at restoring normal blood circulation in the vessels of the brain can be performed.