New advances in the treatment of “aortic coarctation”

  For a long time, there has been a distinction between cardiology and cardiac surgery, with cardiology mainly doing interventions and stents and cardiac surgery mainly doing surgeries and heart bypasses, and patients are often overwhelmed by the choice of which department to do the surgery in. The rapid development of modern medicine, the promotion of bio-psychological medicine model, the gradual development of patient-centered service concept, has made the boundary between cardiac surgery and cardiology gradually blurred, for the treatment of a patient, cardiology and cardiac surgery at the same time “hybrid surgery” in the world The “hybrid surgery” in which cardiology and cardiac surgery are performed simultaneously for the treatment of one patient is rapidly becoming popular worldwide.  Recently, the Second People’s Hospital of Yunnan Province (Hongkai Hospital) cardiovascular surgery department introduced the world’s advanced treatment technology to perform hybrid surgery for a patient with thoracic aortic coarctation. The patient’s aortic coarctation (Stanford type B) rupture extended from the descending aorta to the right common iliac artery, with a reverse tear to the opening of the left subclavian artery, and the right external iliac artery was supplied by a false lumen.  The patient’s condition was complex and advanced, and if the surgery was performed in a median open-heart surgery, it would inevitably require the use of deep hypothermic stop circulation technique, which would have a long operation time, a large blood loss, and damage to the major organs, which would be detrimental to the patient’s recovery. After repeated discussions of the condition by Director Ma Runwei of the Department of Cardiac Surgery and his team, it was finally decided to perform a hybridization procedure for the patient, using a sidewall clamp to assist in the proximal anastomosis of the bifurcated artificial vessel to the lateral wall of the ascending aorta.  The bifurcated vessel was anastomosed to the innominate artery and the left common carotid artery, and the left common carotid artery was then bypassed to the left subclavian artery to resolve the blood supply to the head, neck and upper extremities. The anastomosis was completed followed by endoluminal isolation with a descending aortic overlapping stent to cover the area involved in the entrapment. The treatment of the entrapment was completed with minimal trauma. The whole operation took 5 hours and was successfully completed with the collaboration of cardiac surgery, anesthesiology and interventional unit. After the operation, the patient returned to the care unit with stable vital signs, and was successfully taken off the ventilator the same night, recovering well.  The development of hybridization technology, which fits the concept of evidence-based medicine, standardized treatment, and individualized diagnosis, can create proximal or distal anchorage zones that can meet the needs of intracavitary repair techniques, usually without cardiopulmonary diversion, avoiding deep hypothermic arrest of circulation and myocardial ischemia, and reducing perioperative and late complications, especially in elderly and high-risk patients with combined other organ diseases.  Although in the future we may eventually be able to easily and flexibly apply “branch stent vessels” or other new devices to manage aortic disease involving branch vessels. However, for a long time, it will not be possible to apply endoluminal techniques to all aortic problems. Therefore, hybridization techniques will have a great existence and development. Surgeons should not give up their specialties in surgical techniques because of the development of endoluminal techniques. On the contrary, the combination of traditional surgical techniques with endoluminal techniques will be more likely to result in a perfect new treatment plan.